Citizen science approaches to crowdsourcing food environment data: A scoping review of the literature

Abstract

SummaryGlobally, the adoption and implementation of policies to improve the healthiness of food environments and prevent population weight gain have been inadequate. This is partly because of the complexity associated with monitoring dynamic food environments. Crowdsourcing is a citizen science approach that can increase the extent and nature of food environment data collection by engaging citizens as sensors or volunteered computing experts. There has been no literature synthesis to guide the application of crowdsourcing to food environment monitoring. We systematically conducted a scoping review to address this gap. Forty‐two articles met our eligibility criteria. Photovoice techniques were the most employed methodological approaches (n = 25 studies), commonly used to understand overall access to healthy food. A small number of studies made purpose‐built apps to collect price or nutritional composition data and were scaled to receive large amounts of data points. Twenty‐nine studies crowdsourced food environment data by engaging priority populations (e.g., households receiving low incomes). There is growing potential to develop scalable crowdsourcing platforms to understand food environments through the eyes of everyday people. Such crowdsourced data may improve public and policy engagement with equitable food policy actions.

Citizen Science Studies in Nursing: A Systematic Review

“…The oldest study included in this review is from 2017 [ 38 ]. These results are in line with other reviews [ 14 , 16 , 52 , 53 ], and coincide with the establishment of institutions such as the Australian Citizen Science Association in 2014 or the European Citizen Science Association in 2015 [ 54 ].…”

“…This is the case of CovidWatcher [ 49 ] and other specific citizen science applications like the Standford Healthy Neighborhood Discovery Tool, used in two out of the thirteen selected projects [ 39 , 42 ]. Moreover, online tools, according to Scheibein, are a clear facilitator for the implementation of CS and other similar types of science such as open science or crowdsourcing in new projects [ 16 , 53 ]. These tools include the use of cameras and mobile applications, online surveys and questionnaires, or different websites that are accessible to users for free or for a fee [ 53 , 57 ].…”

“…Moreover, online tools, according to Scheibein, are a clear facilitator for the implementation of CS and other similar types of science such as open science or crowdsourcing in new projects [ 16 , 53 ]. These tools include the use of cameras and mobile applications, online surveys and questionnaires, or different websites that are accessible to users for free or for a fee [ 53 , 57 ]. It was evident from numerous studies, as well as those published by Brickle et al in our review, that Photovoice was one of the most popular methods in this type of research, followed by the method encompassed within the “Our Voice” tool developed by Stanford University [ 38 , 39 , 53 ].…”