Citizen Science and Antimicrobial Resistance

Our team brings together citizen science expertise (PI West) with expertise in antimicrobial resistance (CoIs Swift, Ray) and food systems (CoI Whatford), with national and local food growing organisations (Garden Organic, York allotment groups). Our pilot study will use a collaborative citizen science approach to collect data about the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) bacteria associated with home-grown produce. This area has been chosen because improving the evidence base around antimicrobial resistance is one of FSA's themes, and transmission pathways for AMR in the food system are still under-studied. A citizen science approach is well-suited to this work as it will allow us to better understand food growing practices from non-commercial growers, food handling and preparation practices, whilst giving us opportunity to explore our participants knowledge of food safety in the context of AMR. We will take a collaborative approach to our project, meaning that participants will get involved in collecting data (sending in samples), but also in other stages of the scientific process, namely designing the research questions and methods, and disseminating findings. This will be a pilot study, testing whether this approach enables us to collect high quality data about food handling practices and AMR bacteria, and whether it has any impact in terms of participants' knowledge and understanding of food safety or AMR.

Our work is divided into four workpackages: developing the methodology (WP1), implementation of activities (WP2), evaluation and dissemination (WP3) and project management (WP4). In WP1 we work with our partners and through them, our participants, to design our citizen science methodology, ensuring that it meets both our scientific aims and the needs of the participants. Question and answer (Q&A) sessions with members of the team and invited experts will help with this methodological development, WP2 will involve training participants on how to collect samples, analysing samples sent in by participants alongside a questionnaire of their growing practices, how they swabbed, and how they prepared the produce before consumption. WP3 will involve a short pre- post- questionnaire for our participants to understand their knowledge of the issue of AMR before and after engagement in our project. It will also involve dissemination of information about both our project approach (to encourage further use of citizen science approaches) and project findings to our intended audiences of the FSA, other academics working in the FSA space, other academics who may want to use citizen science, and the citizen science research and practitioner community. WP4 will involve regular team meetings, ensuring the project keeps to time, any issues are escalated appropriately, and provide a space for knowledge exchange within the team about AMR and citizen science approaches.

We chose the FSA Theme of improving the evidence base around antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and food (in Priority 2) because AMR presents a major global health challenge, but awareness of the issues of AMR are low in the general population. In addition, there are still many research questions that need answering about transmission pathways for AMR in the food system, including how practices within homes influence these transmission pathways, and the prevalence of AMR in home-grown produce. The need for data and awareness-raising in the population lends itself very nicely to citizen science. We have chosen a Collaborative citizen science approach because we already know the focal area but our participants will be involved in most other stages of the scientific process, including refining the research questions, collecting data and disseminating findings.

Community groups in York, as well as the national charity Garden Organic have helped shape the study design (e.g. helping decide on the platforms for communication with participants, identifying potential participants, and timing of the project). We will reach out to them once funded to set up online discussion groups to co-design the specific research questions, methods, plan for analysis and dissemination, building on approaches successfully used in previous projects such as Parenting Science Gang. Involvement of growers will be essential for ensuring the project collects data on topics that are of use to growers, and for ensuring that methods are sensible and feasible, for example, helping choose focal crops, designing questionnaires to explore growing practices and preparation methods. Benefits for FSA include gaining insight into home growing practices and produce preparation, and knowledge about AMR. We also anticipate benefits to participants in terms of raising awareness of the issue of AMR and what can be done to address it (e.g. changes in practices around manure use, preparing produce after harvest).