Meet the Medicines—A Crowdsourced Approach to Collecting and Communicating Information about Essential Medicines Online

Yaela N. Golumbic (), Kymberley R. Scroggie, Ciara R. Kenneally, Jiarun Lin, Mitchell T. Blyth, Genevieve Firmer, Peter J. Rutledge and Alice Motion ()
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Yaela N. Golumbic: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Kymberley R. Scroggie: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Ciara R. Kenneally: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Jiarun Lin: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Mitchell T. Blyth: Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
Genevieve Firmer: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Peter J. Rutledge: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Alice Motion: SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains a list of medicines and medical devices, essential medicines , that should be available to everyone, to form a functioning healthcare system. Yet, many of these medicines remain out of reach for people around the world. One significant barrier to improving the accessibility of essential medicines is a paucity of information about both the extent and causes of this problem. E$$ENTIAL MEDICINE$ (E$$) is a citizen science project designed to investigate this deficit of information by recruiting members of the public to find, validate, compile and share information on essential medicines through an open, online database. Herein, we report an approach to crowdsourcing both the collection of information on the accessibility of essential medicines and the subsequent communication of these findings to diverse audiences. The Meet the Medicines initiative encourages members of the public to share information from the E$$ database, in a short video format appropriate for social media. This communication details the design and implementation of our crowdsourced approach and strategies for recruiting and supporting participants. We discuss data on participant engagement, consider the benefits and challenges of this approach and suggest ways to promote crowdsourcing practices for social and scientific good.

Keywords: citizen science; science communication; essential medicines; social media; accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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