Project Harvest During COVID 19: Public Health Adaptations to Ensure Ongoing Social Justice in a Citizen Science Project

Abstract:

Project Harvest is a citizen science project that engages members of historically marginalized communities in Arizona to learn about what is in their rainwater, soil, and garden vegetables. Citizen scientists collect samples for lab analysis and perform DIY analyses at home. Community health workers known as Promotoras visit participant homes to support data collection and collect information on how the project may impact how participant’s think, learn, and do science. Community engagement and data report back events are held yearly to share overall project results and individual home results with families. Over the past four years, Project Harvest has engaged over 200 individuals in learning about their rainwater, soil, and how to make responsible decisions on using their rainwater.

The spread of COVID-19 in Spring 2020 shut down many businesses, projects, and research in Arizona. Due to the unique high level of community involvement and interpersonal contact in Project Harvest, COVID-19 has significantly impacted our points of engagement, sample collection, community gatherings, and data sharing efforts. Project Harvest maintains ongoing communication with promotoras community researchers, and advisory board members to ensure multiple voices contribute to the adaptations and next steps in the project due to COVID-19. For the safety of our community members, it was decided that we suspend in-person data collection and home visits. In May-June 2020, a survey was given to help understand the participant’s needs and safety concerns, perspective on their participation in Project Harvest, and whether their reliance on rainwater harvesting and gardening changed due to the pandemic. Our findings indicate that community attitudes towards COVID-19 and sampling are tied to how acutely COVID-19 impacted each community. Participants are equally reliant on rainwater harvesting and gardening, and community scientists felt that participation in Project Harvest aided in their comfort level regarding COVID-19 data interpretation. In summary, Project Harvest is directly responding to the ethical and public health concerns arising within our justice communities and successfully adapting this citizen science project to the new and unprecedented challenges posed by doing community science during a pandemic.