Crowdsourcing to identify social innovation initiatives in health in low- and middle-income countries

Abstract

Background Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production mechanism that leverages the collective intelligence of non-expert individuals and networked communities for specific goals. Social innovation (SI) initiatives aim to address health challenges in a sustainable manner, with a potential to strengthen health systems. They are developed by actors from different backgrounds and disciplines. This paper describes the application of crowdsourcing as a research method to explore SI initiatives in health. Methods The study explored crowdsourcing as a method to identify SI initiatives implemented in Africa, Asia and Latin America. While crowdsourcing has been used in high-income country settings, there is limited knowledge on its use, benefits and challenges in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. From 2014 to 2018, six crowdsourcing contests were conducted at global, regional and national levels. Results A total of 305 eligible projects were identified; of these 38 SI initiatives in health were identified. We describe the process used to perform a crowdsourcing contest for SI, the outcome of the contests, and the challenges and opportunities when using this mechanism in LMICs. Conclusions We demonstrate that crowdsourcing is a participatory method, that is able to identify bottom-up or grassroots SI initiatives developed by non-traditional actors.

Social Innovation in Health: research, public policy and agency capacity in the Colombian Zika Kids programme

“…A qualitative research was undertaken using a case study methodology. The case was purposefully selected from the SIH database10 managed by TDR (Research and Training in Tropical Diseases) 11. Innovations included in the database were identified through a public crowdsourcing methodology 12.…”

Building the social innovation for health ecosystem in Latin America: experiences and learning from SIHI-LAC

“…To achieve these goals, SIHI-LAC operates in each of the three constituent dimensions described by Pel (see table 1). 13 At selected intervals, social innovation initiatives are publicly crowdsourced across Latin America and the Caribbean and adjudicated by an independent expert panel that follows a pre-established criteria 4 5. The top-rated social innovation initiatives are awarded by SIHI-LAC and SIHI-Global.…”

“…Since 2015, SIHI-LAC identified multiple social innovation initiatives through open crowdsourcing calls and provided a package of support to eight of these initiatives (see table 2). The crowdsourcing process by which these initiatives were selected, and the qualitative research methodology adopted to study these initiatives, have been presented in several other journal publications 3 4 22–24. A qualitative assessment of these eight social innovation initiatives was undertaken between June and July 2021.…”

“…Social innovation for health has grown in relevance and momentum across Latin America 1–5. Yet, the potential of social innovation for health appears mostly untapped, with one reason for this being the limited investment to build strong ecosystems that can support social innovation initiatives 6–8…”

Social innovation in health, community engagement, financing and outcomes: qualitative analysis from the social innovation in health initiative

“…Better understanding community engagement, financing and outcomes related to social innovation will help to expand this field and increase the rigour of research 6. TDR (the UNDP/UNICEF/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for research and training in tropical diseases), the WHO and other organisations have underlined the importance of high-quality research on social innovation 5 7…”