Citizen Science in Biomedicine

Attitudes, Motivation, and Concerns of the General Public and Scientists in Latvia

Bibliographic Data

ID13026472
AuthorsAlise Svandere (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre), Signe Mežinska (0000-0002-3190-100X, University of Latvia), Jekaterina Kalēja (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre), Normunds Kante (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre), Raitis Pečulis (0000-0003-1107-4550, Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre), Olesja Rogoza (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre), Vita Rovīte (0000-0001-9368-5210, Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume12
Issue11
Pages620-620
Publication date2023-11-08
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2076-0760 • E-ISSN: 2076-0760
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/socsci12110620
OpenAlexW4388533123
LanguageEN
References cited14

Citizen science is research carried out by citizens in cooperation with scientists based on scientifically developed methods. Citizen science makes science accessible to the public and promotes public trust. Since there is scarce evidence about attitudes toward citizen science in the field of biomedicine, we aimed to evaluate the attitudes, motivations, and concerns of the Latvian general population and scientists from the biomedical research field toward citizen science research projects. We developed a survey that consisted of seven different citizen science research project examples (vignettes) and circulated it among the Latvian general population and researchers online, collecting quantitative and qualitative data. In total 314 individuals from the general population and 49 researchers filled in the survey. After the analysis was performed, we concluded that the general population and biomedical scientists in Latvia have different expectations toward citizen science. The results showed that while the general public is more interested in individual and societal benefits and concerned with specific participation aspects like filming, photographing, or co-funding, the scientists see the biggest potential contribution to their project in aspects of additional data collection and potential financial support, and are concerned about data quality, potential legal issues, and additional coordination communication that would be needed

Biomedicine · Citizen science · Engineering ethics · Latvian · Political science · Population · Public relations · Science communication · Science education · Sociology · Animal and Plant Science Education · Engineering · Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research · Law · Species Distribution and Climate Change