Objective Basing on the concept of citizen science, this study examines the current support provided by the Chinese portals of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC portals) for public participation in the Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) for infectious disease surveillance, aiming to offer scientific evidence and new solutions for optimizing the CDC portals and enhancing their capacity to support public participation.
Methods Between November 30, 2024 and February 7, 2025, we systematically reviewed the national and 31 provincial-level CDC portals. The textual contents and navigational nodes of each website were extracted, represented, and stored in a tree structure. Content analysis was performed to summarize and categorize the existing structures, contents, and functional features of these websites. Comparison was conducted against the recommendations outlined in the World Health Organization’s guidance manual on public participation in EWARS.
Results Most Chinese CDC portals had a deep hierarchical structure (96.8%), with nodes mainly distributed at the 4th, 5th, and 6th levels. Content development was concentrated in the primary categories including hot topics (64.5%) and disease prevention and control (54.8%), with low coverage on sub-categories such as risk warnings (9.7%), health databases (9.7%), plans and contingencies (6.5%), and scientific projects (3.2%). In terms of functional development, none of the sites included email services, content correction, mobile government clients, or personalized customization features, and satisfaction surveys (19.4%) and intelligent interaction (9.7%) were implemented at low rates. Evaluation of public participation in EWARS on these sites showed that the public can engage in the entire process-from early monitoring and warning to emergency response-though their roles and responsibilities differed at each stage. Currently, only a portion of Chinese CDC portals published monitoring, reporting, warning, and protection recommendations, providing limited support for public participation in EWARS.
Conclusions The current design of CDC portals lacks a systematic approach to facilitate public participation in EWARS. There is a need to optimize portal website architecture, contents, and functionality by integrating the insights from citizen science. This will help transform the portals into comprehensive platforms for public participation in the early warning, alerting, and responses of infectious diseases.
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