Building Knowledge Together: Citizen Science, Communication, and Trust | 5 - 6 October 2026, Berlin

Authors:
Marina Presas1, Antoni Caimari 1, Joan Serrano1, Silvia Orte1, Alejandro Heres1, Sílvia Chafino1, Dorota Komar1, Cedric Moulin2, Leonie Miserez2, Annick Bogaerts2, Roland Devlieger2 , Carmen Freire3, Inés Velasco4, Marta Ocaña5, Paula Sol Ventura5, Alicja Baska6, Michał Ciebiera7, Lisa Moussaoui8, Maryse Ledent9, on behalf of the HYPIEND core-investigators

1 Department of Biotechnology, Eurecat, Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya, Biotechnology Area, Reus, Spain
2 Department of Development and Regeneration, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
3 Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, University of Granada (UGR), Granada, Spain
4 Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Barcelona, Spain
5 Department of Paediatrics, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Barcelona, Spain
6 School of Public Health, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education (CMKP), Warsaw, Poland
7 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education (CMKP), Warsaw, Poland
8 Health Psychology, University of Geneva Faculty of Psychology and Education, Geneva, Geneva, 1205, Switzerland
9 Risk and health impact assessment, Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium

Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) represent a complex and largely invisible environmental health risk, increasingly associated with adverse developmental and metabolic outcomes. Communicating these risks to the public poses significant challenges due to scientific uncertainty, low awareness, and the difficulty of translating evidence into actionable behaviours. In this context, fostering trust in science is essential to enable meaningful citizen engagement and behavioural change.

This contribution presents HYPIEND, a European multicentre intervention as a practice-based case study at the intersection of citizen engagement, public communication, and trust-building. The project involves approximately 325 pregnant women and their infants from Poland, Spain and Belgium in the perinatal study, as well as a complementary school-based intervention reaching 550 children aged 6–8 years, their families, and educational communities, across 38 schools in Spain and Belgium.

While primarily designed as a health intervention, HYPIEND integrates a comprehensive communication and engagement strategy targeting both participants and the broader public. This includes educational workshops for pregnant women, families and schools, communication materials (e.g., infographics, brochures and guidelines), social media campaigns and ongoing personalised follow-up. Public-facing communication activities complement these actions, raising awareness of EDCs and empowering citizens beyond the direct study participants. These elements have been designed to translate complex scientific evidence into accessible, actionable knowledge, while supporting sustained engagement over time.

A central component of this strategy is a digital health platform, developed by Eurecat, designed to support behaviour change through personalized and interactive communication. The platform, available as both a mobile application for pregnant women and families and a web-based tool for researchers, uses a gamified system that recommends “missions” based on user choices and habits, alongside motivational messages explaining the importance of behavioural change and reinforcement strategies to sustain habits over time. It provides personalised advice on environmental health and EDC exposure prevention, integrating educational and interactive content.

The intervention is grounded in a psycho-social framework called Health Action Process Approach (HAPA)(see ref. 1) and moves beyond information provision towards enabling agency, participation, sustained engagement, and translating complex scientific evidence into practical, everyday decisions (see ref. 2). From a citizen science perspective, HYPIEND can be understood as a participatory model in which citizens actively contribute through behavioural changes, data generation, and continuous interaction with the research process. In the prepubertal study, the inclusion of school staff, pupils and families further strengthen the community-based nature of this participation.

This practical insight presents the strategy followed and aims to discuss key challenges and lessons learned derived from the design and implementation of the communication strategy, focusing on: (1) how different communication formats (digital tools, face-to-face interactions, and visual materials) support understanding and engagement; (2) the role science communication for building trust; and (3) challenges related to communicating uncertainty and invisible risks.

The HYPIEND project, coordinated by Eurecat, has received funding from the Horizon Europe programme under grant agreement No. 101137440. Funded by the European Union.