SOCIAL EARNINGS EXPERIMENT FOR STUDENT WELLBEING WITH CITIZEN SCIENCE

In the Netherlands, depression affects nearly 20% of all adults and costs €1.6 billion annually in healthcare costs, and another €1.8 billion in absenteeism costs (RIVM, 2018). Students are part of the broad trend outlined above: a recent nationwide study of Dutch students showed that 51% experience anxiety and depression symptoms (Dopmeijer et al., 2021). It also shows that 34.6% have an increased risk of burnout (Boer de, 2016).

The classical approach.
Preventive health approaches are often designed top-down and outside the end users' own context while research shows that the impact of such interventions are minimal (Greenhalgh & Papoutsi, 2018). The explanation for this is that research projects are described in advance by a group of (science) experts, who do not necessarily have an understanding of the end users' lifeworld. This approach is not very sensitive to specific contexts, which are also constantly changing. In addition, ownership and learning capacity among the end users themselves are little to nonexploited (i.e., the intended target group/citizens).

The Project
An experimental project using the Citizen Science ecosystem approach has begun in Groningen. In a collective effort with involved students come up with usable, context-appropriate effective interventions to improve psychosocial and physical well-being of college students. This ecosystem consists of Hanze University students, lecturer-researchers from the Hanze University and a practice partner (VitaalNed) who are active in this interdisciplinary theme, and the Municipality of Groningen. These partners want to cooperate (co-create) in the implementation of the experiment, but also in the development of a business case and the potential sustainable impact of the experiment.

€49,934 will be used as a PPP programme allowance.