Disseminating for Equity and Justice: Findings From the LIGHT Global Crowdsourcing Open Contest to Reimagine Public Health.

Abstract

Objectives: To describe how crowdsourcing contests soliciting art, letters, stories, and poetry were focused on promoting well-being and health information dissemination from the public to the public.

Design: LIGHT (Leaders Igniting Generational Healing and Transformation) launched three online crowdsourcing open calls that were designed using the World Health Organization Tropical Diseases Research (WHO/TDR) practical guide on crowdsourcing in health and health research, which includes the following steps: convening a steering committee, promoting the open call, receiving and judging entries, recognizing finalists, and sharing solutions.

Setting: The crowdsourcing open calls were held online via the Submittable platform.

Participants: A total of 508 submissions by the public were evaluated with the majority of authors and artists identified as female (25.4%) followed by male (15.4%) and ages ranging from 11 to 82 years old.

Intervention: This study utilized crowdsourcing open call contests to engage the public in generating art, letters, stories, and poetry as strategies to effectively promote well-being and disseminate health information to the public.

Main outcome measured: Effectiveness and creativity of the crowdsourced submissions in proposing new strategies for promoting well-being and disseminating health information through art, letters, stories, and poetry.

Results: The three crowdsourcing open calls received 508 eligible entries (Open call 1 = 155; Open call 2 = 191; Open call 3 = 162). Informed by the combined and modified design justice principles creativity, connections, and community, six unique dissemination strategies emerged for dissemination: (a) positive intersectionality, (b) destigmatization, (c) strength-based, (d) collective approach, (e) cultural identity, and (f) unity in healing. Collectively, there was consensus to innovate dissemination strategies to enhance the appeal of research findings and health communication.

Conclusions: Rebuilding and building public-driven dissemination strategies will involve reimagining and innovating current dissemination approaches. LIGHT shows the feasibility of engaging a diverse broad audience to generate ideas and perspectives on promoting health information dissemination to the public.