What are core values of biomedical citizen scientists?

Understanding the values that biomedical citizen scientists associate with their activities and communities can help predict behavior, which in turn can be useful in risk assessments of and policy development targeting biomedical citizen science.

Core values of genomic citizen science: Results from a qualitative interview study

Initiatives that promote public involvement in the study or manipulation of genetic information are flourishing. These initiatives are diverse and range from data donation studies, to biological experimentation conducted in home and community laboratories, to self-experimentation. Understanding the values that citizen scientists associate with their activities and communities can be useful to policy development for citizen science.

We conducted qualitative interviews with 38 stakeholders in genomic and other biomedical citizen science to understand values associated with these activities. We defined values as beliefs about desirable end states or behaviors that can be categorized according to the motivational goals they express and the interests they serve.

We identified nine core values of the genomic citizen science:

  1. Altruism

  2. Autonomy

  3. Fun

  4. Inclusivity

  5. Openness

  6. Reciprocity

  7. Respect

  8. Safety

  9. Solidarity

Please cite this article as: Christi J. Guerrini, Meredith Trejo, Isabel Canfield, Amy L. McGuire. Core Values of Genomic Citizen Science: Results of an Interview Study, BIOSOCIETIES (2020); doi: 10.1057/s41292-020-00208-2.

A figure showing the values that interviewees associated with genomic science activities and communities, organized by whose interests are served by them.