On November 8th, we took part in a “Meet the Researchers” after hours event at We The Curious Science Centre, engaging the public in our ongoing exhibition “Shopping Trolley Secrets”.
Shopping Trolley Secrets invites the public to walk around an interactive supermarket display, prompting them to select products to add to their own shopping basket. Then, visitors are asked to consider what a researcher might learn from viewing their shopping basket, and also whether they’d be happy (in theory) to share their shopping data for research.
The night’s theme was “guilty pleasures”, allowing us to address purchasing of snacks and unhealthy foods, alcohol, or tobacco purchases, for instance.
The sold-out event was packed with visitors, with over 300 people engaging with our exhibition.
The event prompted some valuable discussions between our team and the public. The public were generally enthusiastic about the use of shopping data for health research, provided that the research was carried out by trusted researchers and businesses were not involved in data analysis. Visitors were keen to point out which items they would be happy to share with us, and which they were more hesitant about.
Overall, the event was a great success and we look forward to coming back for more engagement very soon…
