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.

Citizen science provides researchers means to gather or analyse large datasets. At the same time, citizen science projects offer an opportunity for non-scientists to be part of and learn from the scientific process. In the Dutch iSPEX project, a large number of citizens turned their smartphones into actual measurement devices to measure aerosols. This study examined participants' motivation and perceived learning impacts of this unique project. Most respondents joined iSPEX because they wanted to contribute to the scientific goals of the project or because they were interested in the project topics (health and environmental impact of aerosols). In terms of learning impact, respondents reported a gain in knowledge about citizen science and the topics of the project. However, many respondents had an incomplete understanding of the science behind the project, possibly caused by the complexity of the measurements.

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The motives for accepting or rejecting waste infrastructure facilities: shifting the focus from the planners' perspective to fairness and community commitment. Wolsink, M.P.; Devilee, J.L.A. Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. AbstractIn environmental planning, decision-making on land use for infrastructure increasingly causes conflicts, in particular with regard to contested waste facilities. Risk management and perceptions have become crucial and the focus has now shifted away from siting theory towards balancing the local concerns of host communities with the nationwide concerns of the users of the facilities. Empirical investigations of these conflicts brought clear advancement in the fields of environmental psychology, geography and risk research. However, in planning and policy design the dominant one-dimensional approach among planners remains and the approach to address resistance to facility siting is not firmly founded in empirical evidence. Instead it uses simplified assumptions about the motives of opponents, seeing residents as merely protecting their 'turf' and exclusively focusing on their own 'backyard'. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study on risk perceptions, based on a largescale survey in six decision-making processes for different types of waste facilities. A scale is developed to measure the planners' perspective of the motives for opposition. The analysis shows that the crucial factors in perceived risk perceptions are not personality traits (e.g. selfishness, economic rationality). Crucial factors appear to be: perceived environmental injustice, fairness of the process, and personal commitment to others. Continual thinking in terms of 'backyard' motives disregards the socially motivated norms for equity, fairness, and commitment to others and may easily undermine co-operative behaviour.

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