Key Takeaways:
- The Safe Routes to School program that integrated a “citizen science” approach called Our Voice, increased rates of students walking and biking to/from school compared to the program that did not (24.5 percent vs. 2.6 percent.)
- The Our Voice program trained parents/caregivers to gather, analyze, and utilize data to inform Safe Routes to School activities experienced. Participants of the Our Voice program were more likely to initiate actions to address barriers to walking and biking including meetings with stakeholders compared to the Safe Routes to School program that did not utilize the program.
- The Safe Routes to School program in the elementary school that used Our Voice also had more frequent encouragement activities such as walk/bike events, walking school buses, and walk & roll to school days.
- The Our Voice program that engaged and trained middle school students as citizen scientists experienced high initial engagement by students who sought to implement actions to address barriers to biking and walking.
Implications:
- Safe Routes to School programs should support community members to lead local data collection and provide them the tools for community-led actions
Methods:
- Researchers evaluated an evidence-based community citizen science approach, called Our Voice, for increasing community member engagement and retention in a local public health department-sponsored Safe Routes to School program in Gilroy, California.
- Researchers worked with the local school district to compare two different elementary schools. Elementary School A applied the Our Voice program to its Safe Routes to School program and recruited six adults as “citizen scientists” from the school parent-teacher groups and school staff meetings. Elementary School B used standard Safe Routes to School data collection conducted by the local health department staff and invited participation by five adult community members.
- During the Our Voice program, the adult citizen scientists learned to use the Discovery Tool, a mobile assessment application, to capture their walking route, take geo-coded photos, and record audio narratives of barriers and facilitators to the most frequently traveled routes used by students.
- In Elementary School A, adult citizen scientists, with support from health department staff, categorized data, prioritized issues, and presented the information to stakeholders to think through possible improvements. Citizen scientists initiated subsequent meetings throughout the school year.
- In Elementary School B, the local public health department staff led the data analysis, presented to school stakeholders, and led the brainstorming to through possible solutions. This was the only meeting at the school.
- Programs were evaluated by program engagement, the frequency of meetings, events, and activities, and standard Safe Routes to School Travel Tallies, a self-reported survey of students on their mode of travel to and from school.
- A subsequent intervention applied the Our Voice program to a new Safe Routes to School program in a middle school in the same school district. Instead of adults, twenty-six middle school students were recruited as citizen scientists and received similar training using the Discovery Tool mobile application.
Citation:
Rodriguez, Nicole M., Alisa Arce, Alice Kawaguchi, Jenna Hua, Bonnie Broderick, Sandra J. Winter, and Abby C. King. “Enhancing Safe Routes to School Programs through Community-Engaged Citizen Science: Two Pilot Investigations in Lower Density Areas of Santa Clara County, California, USA.” BMC Public Health 19, no. 1 (March 1, 2019): 256. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6563-1.
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