Crowdsourcing in health and health research: a practical guide
The purpose of this guide is to provide practical advice on designing, implementing, and evaluating crowdsourcing activities for health. In some settings, a group of diverse individuals can solve problems that individuals alone are unable to solve. Crowdsourcing is the process of having a large group, including experts and non-experts, solve a problem and then share the solution with the public.
Challenge contests are one tool for crowdsourcing. These contests issue open calls to solicit new ideas, images, or strategies from the public. Many contests have focused on improving health, but there is little guidance in this area. In designing this guide, a global challenge contest was used to solicit descriptions of contests for health. Independent judges evaluated each contest on pre-specified criteria. Selected submissions were used to develop this guide on organizing, implementing, and evaluating challenge contests for health programme managers, researchers, and policy-makers. Challenge contests for health are described, each stage is examined, evaluation methods are considered, and suggestions are made for what is needed to organize a challenge contest for health.