Identification
Video tool
RAPID APPRAISAL MAPPING
Video tool
Type of tool: Workshop
Phase: Identification
SYMPTOMS MAPPING TOOL
How to map health problems
The Challenge
Imagine you are with a group of people and you want to ask them what health and environmental problems they experience in their city.
How can you gather such information and make everyone reflect upon them?
The Tool
Maps are useful tools to gather people's opinions, as they provide spatial information and enable informal conversations of various people who stand around the artifact. The Symptoms Mapping Tool is a map you can use in a co-creation workshop to identify the health problems that citizens perceive in their living area.
Download the toolbox
We share with you some resources that can be useful to carry out this activity.
Discover the tool in action!
Read the case study and understand how this tool has been used in a real citizen science project.
Using the SYMPTOMS MAPPING TOOL in a workshop
CitieS-Health Barcelona Pilot
What
This is an activity suitable for a co-creation workshop or an event. It consists in asking participants to map environmental problems and health symptoms that they experience in different areas of their city. Participants populate a map of the geographical areas with stickers that represent different problems. The resulting map provides valuable insights on citizens’ concerns, thus showing areas of interest for the intervention.
Why
To investigate perceived symptoms of citizens due to any environmental issue, by districts of the city.
How
Prepare the materials. You will need a large paper map of the geographical area at stake and stickers with different icons that represent problems that may exist. You can create stickers for environmental and health problems, for instance: noise, air, odour, crowded place, headache, respiratory difficulty, tiredness, nausea, itchy eyes, cough, sleep disorder. Print some empty stickers as well in case participants want to add a new problem.
Prepare the space. Either in conjunction with a public workshop or in other public events, create a separate space for engagement where you will place the large map of the city and the symptoms cards.
Place the stickers on the map. Ask citizens and representatives of various institutions to map perceived symptoms across the city’s districts. Participants place the stickers in locations of the city that they perceive to be affected by the problem.
Gather further unstructured inputs. Keep the conversation with participants going to gather additional annotations that can further explain the symptoms. Annotate this on post-its. Keep in mind that if the number of participants is high, it becomes difficult to keep the pins and post-its in order.
Analyse the results. Derive insights by analysing symptoms by district.