The Citizen Scientist Program
The mission of the Citizen Scientist Program at the University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute is to engage the public, including patients with lived experience and families of individuals with particular health care issues, as partners with scientists and community clinicians in the research process. The Citizen Scientist Program was developed to engage patients and community members as collaborators throughout the entire research endeavor, including identifying study topics, study design, recruitment, retention, interpretation of the findings, and information dissemination. In 2016, a separate Teen Citizen Scientist group was formed, which will give feedback and advice on pediatric-oriented research studies.
The vision for this program is to help create a learning health care system. A learning health care system looks to clinical practice — real-world doctors’ offices, patients, and their families — to find out what questions are important to ask. Citizen scientists, researchers and health care systems are partnering to come up with creative and practical solutions that impact patients and families. That way, answers are more relevant to the real-world settings in which people seek health care every day.
Learn more about the Citizen Scientist Program here.