Crowdsourcing e gamificação no combate à dengue.

Abstract

Crowdsourcing techniques try to use the experience, intelligence or knowledge of a large population on a matter, for the development or potentially quick economic improvement and troubleshooting. The participation of users is the main point for proper operation of these techniques. However, keeping a population contributing effectively in a community is not an easy task, so increasingly crowdsourcing is associated with other techniques, such as gamification. As such, the combination of techniques has aroused the interest of researchers for use in various fields, including the health area. In the fight against dengue, when it would be helpful if the government allied with the population, crowdsourcing and gamification have been used very little. This dissertation aimed to contribute to an application of crowdsourcing and gamification in combating dengue. Dengue is a neglected disease, named as such for attracting less investment in research than AIDS, cancer, tuberculosis and malaria that makes dengue more lethal and having an increasing mortality rate. In Brazil, the fight against dengue is typically assigned to two government agencies: Environmental Monitoring - VA and epidemiological surveillance - VE. However, these bodies usually have insufficient materials, structural resources and human workers for a more effective fight in terms of the following indicators of success: number of notifications, time of action and decision-making, and degree of integration of VA / VE. The research question that this Masters Dissertation addresses is: "Would a collaborative system based on key concepts of crowdsourcing and gamification favorably influence such indicators of success?" In the case, the system will use the above concepts and will be available on a Web platform with access via mobile computing devices (inclusive). The methodology used to develop the software was XP, which is recommended when the goal is to deliver the features quickly and efficiently. This research was conducted in partnership with the VA and VE of the Campina Grande - PB city, and had as a methodological feature some exploratory studies, such as field research to meet the operational processes of the VA and VE teams, semi-structured interviews with members of the VA / VE to identify major gaps in the fight against dengue cases; structured interviews with three members of the dengue hotline; defining success metrics in partnership with the team of VE; presentation of system screenshots for VA / VE; presentation of the prototype for both agencies and prioritization of features and system development. The validation of the prototype indicated significant improvements in indicators of success when compared to existing forms of denunciation, disk dengue and dengue zap.