Our Voice Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Page

Virtually anyone can be a citizen scientist, regardless of their age or background! We typically collaborate with community-facing research groups or local organizations seeking partnerships in tackling a specific community issue or concern.

Our Voice has collaborated with many kinds of partners, including community organizations, academic institutions, tribal nations, municipal agencies, and county and state health and education departments, both in the U.S. and in projects spanning 6 continents.

Unlike apps like 311 or Citizen Mobile, the Our Voice framework emphasizes collective issue identification, solution generation, and advocacy. This focus allows for a more nuanced, representative perspective on community issues and more relevant, effective solution generation than one individual working alone might be able to create.

Additionally, apps like 311 and Citizen Mobile often do not provide avenues to propose data-driven, community-led solutions. Our Voice's solution-oriented framework engages participants in collectively interpreting their data and using their findings to generate solutions that are meaningful yet feasible from community members’ perspectives, fostering feelings of agency and ownership over the process.

Our Voice is a type of participatory action research. Our job is to support each Our Voice project so that the knowledge gained in each  project is directly relevant and useful for the participating  community as well as adding meaningful information to advance science more broadly. This means that project-related questions of interest and ideas come primarily from community-facing research partners and organizations with Our Voice team support. 

The research activities occurring in Our Voice projects depend on the goals of the project. We ask that all projects administer a brief survey at the beginning and end of the project as part of the program evaluation process to learn how the project activities helped participants and their communities. 

The duration of each project may vary based on need, scale, and interest. We have led community members through the entire process in just a day, and also have partnerships that have spanned years. 

The impacts of Our Voice projects have ranged from local short-term improvements, such as creating advisory boards to address community health issues, to longer-term improvements, such as collaborating with city engineers on a 3-year action plan to improve street safety. These short and long term improvements have been observed at the individual, community, built environment, and policy levels, subsequently creating “ripple effects” that continue to positively impact communities. Visit The Our Voice Impact page to learn more about examples of how Our Voice has helped improve different types of communities!

Our Voice ensures the confidentiality of citizen scientists' identities and the data they collect by implementing several protective measures throughout the Discovery Tool data collection process. Each participant's identity remains anonymous; every device used (such as phones, tablets, or TracFones) is assigned a unique, randomized 4-digit Walk ID. Any identifying information, such as faces or license plates, is automatically blurred, and researchers thoroughly double-check to confirm that no personal data is accessible. The anonymized data collected are processed and securely stored on Stanford’s server system, with oversight from the Our Voice team and project facilitators. Additionally, all citizen scientists receive a report detailing the data collected, and there is an option for collaborating community organizations and citizen scientists to share this data with local stakeholders as needed.

Our Voice collaborates with academic partners, such as community-engaged researchers, as well as community-based organizations, including non-profits and local government entities, all aimed at promoting health equity through community engagement. We invite partnerships with community-facing researchers and organizations focused on projects addressing community health determinants related to physical and social environments and policies. Whether you represent a research institution, a community group, or another organization, we welcome your collaboration. Please note that we require at least a month’s notice before project implementation to coordinate logistics. Interested parties can reach out via our Contact Us page to discuss potential partnerships that align with our mission of surveying built environmental conditions to enhance community health.

Organizations don't need to have research experience to conduct an Our Voice project. For non-research oriented community organizations, we can work with you to guide and delegate the research aspects of your project, as well as support you in finding local research collaborators. Please see the Partner With Us page and click on “For researchers” or “For community groups” to be taken to the respective descriptions of key responsibilities for each party. 

All Our Voice projects are developed in close collaboration with local community facilitators and members to ensure that they are well-tailored to the unique needs of each community. For more detailed information on what a partnership between Our Voice and your organization might look like, please read the Partner With Us page and click on For researchers or For community groups, depending on your organization. Then, Contact Us directly so we can discuss implementation possibilities in your specific community.

Please go to the Partner With Us page on our website and click on “For researchers” or “For community groups,” depending on what kind of organization you represent. On each respective page, you’ll find the initial project planning worksheet that can help in this planning process, which includes a proposed project timeline. 

Recruitment depends almost entirely on the types of participants that are most relevant for your project as well as the availability of resources and community partnerships. Recruitment is optimized when project coordinators can identify relevant community organizations or groups who are already working with the issues and the people that are most relevant to the project. Given this,  it’s important for you to think about the scope of an initial Our Voice project ahead of time. 

Participation in Our Voice projects involves completing surveys that are vital for advancing scientific knowledge in health promotion and equity by analyzing community members' collective agency, social cohesion, and the impact of the Our Voice process on local built environments and policy reforms. The data collected through these surveys is anonymized and stored for our team to analyze trends across different projects and  groups. It is important to note that the Stanford Our Voice team does not have access to any personal or identifiable data. We take measures to ensure privacy, such as blurring faces or identifying information in photographs. Additionally, we do not alter or manipulate the visual or audio data collected by participants. Our role is to integrate the diverse data collected through the Discovery Tool to facilitate its use by the participating community organizations and residents involved in the project.

The costs associated with Our Voice services vary depending on the individual project’s scope, timeline, and specific requirements. As a non-profit initiative within the Stanford School of Medicine, our goal is to support a range of projects within our capacity to do so. We understand that each project is unique and our pricing structure is designed to be responsive as much as possible to community needs. Please feel free to reach out to ourvoicestanford@gmail.com if you have specific questions about pricing or need further guidance on funding a potential project.

Successful Our Voice projects typically require resources and support both from the collaborating organization and the Our Voice team. In particular, having a committed project coordinator from your group has been shown to be an essential part of a successful Our Voice project. Additional resources will depend on the size and scope of each Our Voice project.

Resources we can provide as part of a collaborative partnership agreement are typically determined jointly and may include the following:

• Consultation and support in grant writing, project design, and identification of evaluation measures
• Remote project orientation webinars and training for facilitators, stakeholders, and citizen scientists
• Some basic configuration elements pertaining to the Discovery Tool app and data platform to meet project needs (languages, photo and narrative tags, data report requirements, etc.)
• Sponsored access to the password-protected Discovery Tool Data Portal, housed on a secure server at Stanford University

• A toolkit of adaptable materials and resources to meet project needs including:

  • Outreach and engagement of community participants

  • Discovery Tool training for community participants

  • Facilitation guides and materials for local community meetings

  • Translation templates to support adding new languages to the app

  • Standardized pre/post evaluation measures

  • Sample language for funding proposals and IRB/ethics protocols

• Collaborative development of project presentations, and/or publications, including project posting on the Our Voice website

Our Voice is committed to ensuring that partners feel supported at every step of the community-engaged process. This includes ongoing guidance, materials, technical support, and problem-solving throughout an Our Voice project.

We love working with students! Whether you have a long-standing interest in citizen science and health equity or are just getting started in these fields, we’d love to hear from you to see if there is mutual fit. 

There are various ways that students can contribute to and get involved with Our Voice, from obtaining course credit through research grants and work-study. For more information on our student opportunities, please visit our Student Opportunities page. If you have new ideas or questions about working as a student with Our Voice, email ourvoiceinfo@stanford.edu.

To ensure the privacy and precise management of your research data, a project ID is required when using the Discovery Tool. This ID uniquely identifies your project, allowing us to keep your data organized and secure. In addition to providing security and organization, we also offer "test" project IDs. 

Similar to how we handle photos with the utmost confidentiality, assigning a project ID, paired with a password, limits access to authorized individuals only.

Currently, the Discovery Tool is only available for use by structured projects in funded collaborations between Our Voice and partner organizations.

If you are interested in partnering with Our Voice, please go to the Partner With Us page for resources and planning guides, fill out the Contact Form with a brief summary of the project you would be interested in pursuing, and an Our Voice team member will follow up with you shortly.

Before going on a data collection walk, Our Voice staff typically train citizen scientists to use the Discovery Tool. Occasionally, project facilitators may choose to take the lead in Discovery Tool training, such as when participating citizen scientists speak a non-English language. Sometimes this is delivered as a formal presentation ahead of the walk, and other times we just instruct people verbally right before beginning the walk. The app is simple and designed to be accessible to a wide range of ages and abilities.

Yes! The Discovery Tool app is currently available in 14 languages (see below). We are always excited to add new languages to our platform, so if there is a language that is not currently offered, we are happy to work with research and/or community facilitators to translate the app into the desired new language.

• English
• Spanish
• Simplified Chinese 
• Traditional Chinese
• Arabic
• Dutch
• Russian
• Hebrew
• French
• Swedish
• Portuguese
• Thai
• Amharic
• Vendy
• Yoruba

After using the Discovery tool, your data will be securely uploaded to our secure, online Staford server (only Our Voice staff and project facilitators can access) and anonymized with a random 4-digit Walk-ID code. When Our Voice staff process your data, all identifying information is blurred or removed before sharing a data report with you and your community. Photos from Discovery Tool data walks are only shared with your consent in dissemination efforts, such as through project pages on the Our Voice website.

After your group uses the Discovery Tool to gather photos and audio-text recordings, our team will then process the data, transcribe audio, blur any faces or personal details, and properly orient the  images. If we notice any issues with the uploaded data, we will contact you to reupload as needed. Once processed, we will compile a complete report of the findings and insights to share with you.

While each collaboration is unique and suited to the given project’s goals, data collection is typically followed by a community data meeting. Here, participants review the collected data to identify key themes and potential solutions to barriers uncovered in the Discovery Tool process. With the support of facilitators, the group then brainstorms ideas for implementing solutions and outlines an action plan for carrying these initiatives forward.