COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN THE VIRTUAL AGE: A CROWDSOURCING OPEN CONTEST TO DESIGN A LATINOSPECIFIC COVID-19 CAMPAIGN

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Latinos are among the most heavily impacted populations by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States due to intersectional barriers to care. Crowdsourcing open contests can be an effective means of community engagement but have not been well studied in Latino populations nor in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives of this study were to implement a crowdsourcing open contest to solicit a name for a social marketing campaign addressing COVID-19 for Latinos in Maryland, and evaluate the contest through mixed-methods analysis. METHODS: We conducted descriptive statistics of entries and votes, and demographics of participants. Submitted text was analyzed through inductive thematic analysis to understand community attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: We received 74 entries within a brief 2-week period, limited by the urgency COVID-19 pandemic. The top 10 entries were chosen by a panel of community judges and the winner was decided by popular votes. We received 383 votes within 1 week. The most common themes were collective efficacy, self-efficacy, and perceived benefits of COVID-19 testing. We subsequently incorporated these themes into campaign advertisements, and these ended up being the highest performing ads. CONCLUSIONS: Crowdsourcing is an effective means of community engagement and an agile tool for guiding interventions to address COVID-19, including in populations impacted by healthcare disparities such as Latino communities.