How can citizen science help public health research?

Key messages

• Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research as co-researchers, for example, to collect and analyse data.
• Citizen science can provide valuable insights to monitor the ongoing impact of policy.
• We piloted a citizen science approach to monitor workplace support for breastfeeding.
• The project provided novel insights that would not be picked up through more traditional approaches.
• We are in the process of exploring what these findings mean for policy and practice around workplace breastfeeding and how we can take this work forward.
• More work is required to advance the application of citizen science approaches in public health research and practice.