van Niekerk L, Ongkeko A, Hounsell RA, Msiska BK, Mathanga DP, Mothe J, Juban N, Awor P, Balabanova D. Crowdsourcing to identify social innovation initiatives in health in low- and middle-income countries.
Infect Dis Poverty 2020;
9:138. [PMID:
33028407 PMCID:
PMC7539476 DOI:
10.1186/s40249-020-00751-x]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2019] [Accepted: 09/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production mechanism that leverages the collective intelligence of non-expert individuals and networked communities for specific goals. Social innovation (SI) initiatives aim to address health challenges in a sustainable manner, with a potential to strengthen health systems. They are developed by actors from different backgrounds and disciplines. This paper describes the application of crowdsourcing as a research method to explore SI initiatives in health.
Methods
The study explored crowdsourcing as a method to identify SI initiatives implemented in Africa, Asia and Latin America. While crowdsourcing has been used in high-income country settings, there is limited knowledge on its use, benefits and challenges in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. From 2014 to 2018, six crowdsourcing contests were conducted at global, regional and national levels.
Results
A total of 305 eligible projects were identified; of these 38 SI initiatives in health were identified. We describe the process used to perform a crowdsourcing contest for SI, the outcome of the contests, and the challenges and opportunities when using this mechanism in LMICs.
Conclusions
We demonstrate that crowdsourcing is a participatory method, that is able to identify bottom-up or grassroots SI initiatives developed by non-traditional actors.
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