Citizen Science to Communicate about Public Health Messages: The Reach of a Playful Online Survey on Sitting Time and Physical Activity

ABSTRACT

There is a lack of research on how to communicate public health guidelines. Citizen science (CS) has been an effective way to involve the public in research. This study analyses the reach of a well-established CS experiment, launched during an annual national science event, to understand if it could be used as communication strategy for public health issues. A short playful online survey contained tailored health-related messages associated to an “animal totem” profile, based on the combination of sitting and physical activity levels (koala: high sitting, low activity; gorilla: high sitting, high activity; zebra: low sitting, low activity; bee: low sitting, high activity). Tweets, radio interviews, radio and online advertisements, press articles, and a press conference were used to promote the CS experiment. Google Analytics and Facebook Graph API (application programming interface) (use and spread of experiment) and descriptive statistics (attributes of adults completing the experiment) were used. A total of 6,246 adults completed the experiment, with a peak of views (n = 5,103) and completions (n = 1,209) a couple of days before the event. Completers were mostly female (65.8%), on average 37.5 years old, and had a healthy body mass index (23.8 kg/m²). Nearly half (46.4%) had the most beneficial profile (“bee”), 26.5% had the least healthy profile (“koala”). CS as part of a national science event is a good platform for health communication as 1 in 1,000 Flemish adults were reached. However, those completing the experiment were not representative of the general Flemish adult population and reported to be more physically active.

Abbreviations: API: application programming interface; BMI: body mass index; CVD: cardiovascular disease; METs: metabolic equivalents

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study protocols were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Ghent University Hospital, Belgium (2012_320; IRB registration number B670201214227). Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

There are no potential, perceived, or real conflicts of interest related to the research reported in the manuscript. All authors agree with the content of the manuscript and no author has interest that might be interpreted as influencing the research.

Acknowledgments

The authors want to acknowledge Technopolis and their partners for the organization of the mass-experiment and 2dotstwice, the web developers of the online survey. We would also like to thank the participants for providing the data. The content of this paper reflects the authors’ views only.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2018.1433955.

Availability of data and materials

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article is included as an additional file.

Additional information

Funding

K.D.C. was supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO): (postdoctoral research fellowship: FWO11/PDO/097).