Citizen Science and health is a rapidly emerging strand within the citizen science field. The mainstream of this work appears to be represented by projects that are directly related to personal health, whereby scientists and patients are jointly working on the better management of health conditions. This poster presents a different angle – the impact of place-based citizen science projects (which are not focussing on health) on subjective well-being more broadly, and explores ways of measuring such impact. In particular, it presents two recent citizen science projects where temporarily displaced youth from Ukraine explored public spaces of their new home towns and collected various types of data related to the environment. We report on our mixed methods impact assessment studies that rely on sketch maps, interviews, focus groups and a survey based on a scale from previous research. We suggest that place-based citizen science demonstrates the potential for transformative impact and increased resilience of communities and ecosystems alike. Especially in the context of residential displacement, which puts individuals into an emotionally-depleting and stressful state for an extended period of time, place-based citizen science can become a form of curated sociability or nature-based social prescription. We conclude by calling for the active inclusion of refugees and temporarily displaced families in citizen science, contributing to their restoration and well-being.
Find out more here: Exploring Ways for Assessing Impact of Place-Based Citizen Science on Subjective Well-being of Refugee Youth