title: Citizen Science for public health.
abstract: Community engagement in public health policy is easier said than done. One reason is that public health policy is produced in a complex process resulting in policies that may appear not to link up to citizen perspectives. We therefore address the central question as to whether citizen engagement in knowledge production could enable inclusive health policy making. Building on non-health work fields, we describe different types of citizen engagement in scientific research, or 'Citizen Science'. We describe the challenges that Citizen Science poses for public health, and how these could be addressed. Despite these challenges, we expect that Citizen Science or similar approaches such as participatory action research and 'popular epidemiology' may yield better knowledge, empowered communities, and improved community health. We provide a draft framework to enable evaluation of Citizen Science in practice, consisting of a descriptive typology of different kinds of Citizen Science and a causal framework that shows how Citizen Science in public health might benefit both the knowledge produced as well as the 'Citizen Scientists' as active participants.
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.|Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Den Broeder
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Devilee
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.|Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Van Oers
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.|VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: A Jantine
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Schuit
authors.affiliation: Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Annemarie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wagemakers
mesh_terms: D003256:Community Participation / Q000379:methods*; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D011050:Policy Making; D011634:Public Health