Building healthy schools through technology-enabled citizen science: A Participatory Action Model in schools from Bogotá, Colombia
Oral Presentation C9.7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/hfjc.v14i3.699Keywords:
Citizen Science, School, Healthy Habits, Environment, Participatory Action ModelAbstract
Background: The physical and social environment of school settings are important for health promotion among children and adolescents. Efforts to create supportive environments at the school level can benefit from including community engagement and empowerment processes to advocate for health promotion. The Our Voice model presents a unique opportunity for Latin American students to improve their school environments. Purpose: The objective of this study was to engage and empower students from five schools in Bogotá, Colombia to use the Our Voice model to assess and seek to improve their local school environments. Methods: This study employed Our Voice’s ‘citizen science by the people’ method and a mobile application for data collection. The Our Voice method included the following four phases: 1) Design, planning and recruitment; 2) Data collection; 3) Community meetings for thematic analysis, priority setting and initial design of feasible solutions; and 4) Community meetings with relevant decision-makers to advocate for specific and realistic changes. Results: 39 children and adolescents were enrolled as citizen scientists and were trained to: 1) use mobile-based technologies to collect data about key factors from the physical and social environments that influence the engagement in healthy behaviors at their schools; 2) analyze their information, establish priorities, and collectively identify potential solutions; 3) make their voices heard by relevant policymakers at the school level; and 4) establish commitments and facilitate actions to improve the physical and social environments to promote health at schools. The students identified and advocated for safer physical activity-supportive environments and healthier food and drinks availability. Conclusions: This study allowed children and adolescent citizen scientists to make their voices heard by policymakers and empowered them as agents of change in the process of building healthier schools. Funding: This work was supported by the Colombian Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation-Colciencias [grant numbers 726-2016 to S.A.G, M.A.R., C.T.] and partially supported by CRDF Global agreement OISE-20-66868-, and by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant ID#7334 (awarded to A.C.K.).
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Copyright (c) 2021 Silvia A. González, Maria A. Rubio, Camilo A. Triana, Abby C. King, Ann W. Banchoff, Olga L. Sarmiento
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