IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v12y2023i11p620-d1276463.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Citizen Science in Biomedicine: Attitudes, Motivation, and Concerns of the General Public and Scientists in Latvia

Author

Listed:
  • Alise Svandere

    (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Ratsupites Str. 1-k1, LV-1067 Riga, Latvia)

  • Signe Mežinska

    (Institute of Clinical and Preventive Medicine, University of Latvia, Rainis Boulevard 19, LV-1586 Riga, Latvia)

  • Jekaterina Kaleja

    (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Ratsupites Str. 1-k1, LV-1067 Riga, Latvia)

  • Normunds Kante

    (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Ratsupites Str. 1-k1, LV-1067 Riga, Latvia)

  • Raitis Peculis

    (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Ratsupites Str. 1-k1, LV-1067 Riga, Latvia)

  • Olesja Rogoza

    (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Ratsupites Str. 1-k1, LV-1067 Riga, Latvia)

  • Vita Rovite

    (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Ratsupites Str. 1-k1, LV-1067 Riga, Latvia)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Alise Svandere & Signe Mežinska & Jekaterina Kaleja & Normunds Kante & Raitis Peculis & Olesja Rogoza & Vita Rovite, 2023. "Citizen Science in Biomedicine: Attitudes, Motivation, and Concerns of the General Public and Scientists in Latvia," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-16, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:11:p:620-:d:1276463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/11/620/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/11/620/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:11:p:620-:d:1276463. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.