Citizen Science and Antimicrobial Resistance

我们的团队汇集了公民科学专业知识（PI West），抗菌素耐药性（CoIs Swift，Ray）和食品系统（CoI Whatford）的专业知识，以及国家和地方食品种植组织（Garden Organic，约克分配组）。我们的试点研究将使用合作的公民科学方法来收集与本土农产品相关的抗菌素耐药性（AMR）细菌流行率的数据。之所以选择这一领域，是因为改善抗菌素耐药性的证据基础是FSA的主题之一，而AMR在食品系统中的传播途径仍在研究之中。公民科学方法非常适合这项工作，因为它将使我们能够更好地了解非商业种植者的食品种植实践，食品处理和准备实践，同时让我们有机会探索我们的参与者在AMR背景下的食品安全知识。我们将采取合作的方式来进行我们的项目，这意味着参与者将参与收集数据（发送样本），但也参与科学过程的其他阶段，即设计研究问题和方法，并传播研究结果。这将是一项试点研究，测试这种方法是否能够使我们收集有关食品处理实践和AMR细菌的高质量数据，以及它是否对参与者对食品安全或AMR的知识和理解产生任何影响。我们的工作分为四个工作包：制定方法（工作包1），实施活动（工作包2），评估和传播（工作包3）和项目管理（工作包4）。在WP1中，我们与我们的合作伙伴合作，并通过他们，我们的参与者，设计我们的公民科学方法，确保它符合我们的科学目标和参与者的需求。与团队成员和受邀专家的问答（Q&A）会议将有助于这一方法的发展，WP2将涉及培训参与者如何收集样本，分析参与者发送的样本以及关于他们成长实践的调查问卷，他们如何擦洗，以及他们如何在消费前准备产品。WP3将为我们的参与者提供一份简短的前后问卷，以了解他们在参与我们的项目之前和之后对AMR问题的了解。它还将涉及传播有关我们的项目方法（以鼓励进一步使用公民科学方法）和项目结果的信息，以我们的FSA目标受众，在FSA空间工作的其他学者，其他可能想要使用公民科学的学者，以及公民科学研究和从业者社区。WP4将包括定期的团队会议，确保项目按时进行，任何问题都得到适当的升级，并为团队内关于AMR和公民科学方法的知识交流提供空间。

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.