Abstract
BackgroundHypothesis generation is an essential task for clinical research, and it can require years of research experience to formulate a meaningful hypothesis. Recent studies have endeavored to apply crowdsourcing to generate novel hypotheses for research. In this study, we apply crowdsourcing to explore previously unknown allergy-associated factors.ObjectiveIn this study, we aimed to collect and test hypotheses of unknown allergy-associated factors using a crowdsourcing service.MethodsUsing a series of questionnaires, we asked crowdsourcing participants to provide hypotheses on associated factors for seven different allergies, and validated the candidate hypotheses with odds ratios calculated for each associated factor. We repeated this abductive validation process to identify a set of reliable hypotheses.ResultsWe obtained two primary findings: (1) crowdsourcing showed that 8 of the 13 known hypothesized allergy risks were statically significant; and (2) among the total of 157 hypotheses generated by the crowdsourcing service, 75 hypotheses were statistically significant allergy-associated factors, comprising the 8 known risks and 53 previously unknown allergy-associated factors. These findings suggest that there are still many topics to be examined in future allergy studies.ConclusionsCrowdsourcing generated new hypotheses on allergy-associated factors. In the near future, clinical trials should be conducted to validate the hypotheses generated in this study.
Highlights
◯ Industrial area ◯ Urban area ◯ Suburb/countryside Q6) When you were a child, did you often catch cold? ◯ Yes. ◯ No Q7) Do (Did) you have a good relationship with your family? ◯ Yes. ◯ I had/have a lot of stress
R1) Please submit some of your own questions that you feel may help to detect the cause of an allergy. (e.g.) Were you *ing when you were a child? [Please be as specific as possible.] Were/Do/Did you ( ) ?
○ Indicates a radio box (Single choice) □ Indicates a check box (Multiple choice) (Top) Profile questions (Middle) Risk questions (Bottom) Novel risk-proposal question
Summary
R1) Please submit some of your own questions that you feel may help to detect the cause of an allergy. (e.g.) Were you *ing when you were a child? [Please be as specific as possible.] Were/Do/Did you ( ) ?. P1) Age: ◯ 10-19 ◯ 20s ◯ 30s ◯ 40s ◯ 50s ◯ 60s and/or above (__) P2) Sex: ◯ Male ◯ Female P3) Marital Status: ◯ Single ◯ Married P4) Number of siblings: ◯ Only child ◯ 1 ◯ 2 ◯ 3 ◯ More (__) P5) Do you have any allergies? : □ Asthma □ Pollinosis □ Allergic rhinitis □ Atopic dermatitis □ Food allergy □ Drug hypersensitivity □ Sick building syndrome □ None
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