Scaling Up: Citizen Science Engagement and Impacts Beyond the Individual.

Area of Science:

• Environmental health
• Public health
• Citizen science

Background:

• Citizen science is expanding to address complex social issues like community health.
• Wildland fire smoke poses a significant public health burden.
• Organizations are showing interest in engaging with citizen science projects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore motivations for organizational engagement in citizen science.
• To understand how organizations envision citizen science improving public health.

Main Methods:

• Interviews were conducted with individuals from environmental and health agencies in the western US.
• Participants were engaged with the Smoke Sense citizen science project.
• Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze interview data.

Main Results:

• Individual motivations for engagement stemmed from personal, professional, and community experiences with wildfire smoke.
• Respondents saw value in using the Smoke Sense app and its data.
• Organizations envisioned using the project to enhance existing outreach and communication strategies.

Conclusions:

• Citizen science projects addressing complex issues should be designed to complement the work of partner organizations.
• Organizational engagement can be fostered by aligning project goals with their existing roles and challenges.
• Leveraging citizen science data and tools can support and enhance organizational public health efforts.