You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 9, Issue 2
  • ‘It all stems from relationship’: effectiveness of a crowdsourcing contest to elicit community ideas on how to build trust between healthcare providers and community about COVID-19

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Digital health
‘It all stems from relationship’: effectiveness of a crowdsourcing contest to elicit community ideas on how to build trust between healthcare providers and community about COVID-19
  1. Allison Christine Mathews1,2,
  2. Miranda Wenhold3,
  3. Allison Caban-Holt4,
  4. Takiyah Starks4,
  5. Alan Richmond5,
  6. Anissa Vines6,
  7. Goldie Smith Byrd4,7
  1. 1 Faith Coordinating Center, School of Divinity, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
  2. 2 Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
  3. 3 Center for Health Equity Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  4. 4 Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
  5. 5 CEAL I-TEAM, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, Durham, North Carolina, USA
  6. 6 Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  7. 7 Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Allison Christine Mathews, Faith Coordinating Center, School of Divinity, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27106, USA; mathewa{at}wfu.edu

Abstract

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic requires a nimble approach to building trust between healthcare providers and community. Crowdsourcing is one community-engaged approach that may be effective at engaging marginalised communities to identify ways to build trust. This early-stage innovation report assesses the effectiveness of using a crowdsourcing contest to elicit community ideas on how to build trust between healthcare providers and community about COVID-19 and promote community engagement about vaccines.

Methods This mixed-methods study conducted a qualitative assessment of crowdsourcing contest entries and evaluated online community engagement via social media analytics (reach, video views, engagement). Themes from contest entries informed the development of community leader video interviews. Qualitative data from contest entries were digitally transcribed and analysed using axial coding.

Results Contest participants (n=19) were European Americans (n=10), African Americans (n=8, 87%) and American Indians (n=1), the majority of whom identified as women (n=18) and were 18–80 years old. Contest entry recommendations included: (1) partner with community stakeholders and providers, (2) improve access to credible information from trusted sources, (3) use multiple channels of communication, and (4) use clear and plain language.

Conclusion Crowdsourcing contests coupled with public education are beneficial community engagement tools to identify new ways to promote trust between medical professionals and diverse community members about COVID-19. Crowdsourcing contests also provide opportunity for partnership and critical dialogue between healthcare professionals and community leaders.

  • COVID-19
  • Public Health
  • Social Medicine

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjinnov-2021-000896

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @_allisonmathews

    • Contributors ACM wrote the full draft of the manuscript and led the research design and implementation. MW supported research implementation (recruitment, data analysis), coordinated engagement with public involvement and provided extensive edits to manuscript drafts. AC-H supported research implementation (recruitment) and engagement with public involvement (review of contest submissions, identification of community partners) and provided edits to manuscript draft. TS supported research implementation (recruitment) and engagement with public involvement (identification of community partners, support of public education efforts), and provided edits to manuscript draft. AR (MPI) supported grant submission and engagement with public involvement (management of Community Response Teams). AV (MPI) supported grant submission and overall coordination of research design and implementation, and provided edits to the manuscript. GSB (MPI) provided extensive involvement in research design and provided edits to manuscript draft.

    • Funding This research was funded by a subcontract from 17-312-0217571-66099L (AV, MPI) September 09, 2020– September 08, 2021 Research Triangle Institute/NIH/NHLBI (OTA-20-011B).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.