Evaluating community engagement in global health research: the need for metrics

BMC Medical Ethics

Jeremy Sugarman⁵  Jessica Holzer⁴  Janet Frohlich²  Anant Bhan¹  Kathleen M. MacQueen³ 

[1] Bioethics and Global Health, Bhopal/Pune, India;Vulindlela Clinical Research Site, CAPRISA, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa;Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, FHI 360, 359 Blackwell Street, Durham 27514, NC, USA;Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA;Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

关键词: Metrics;    Evaluation;    Global health;    Participatory research;    Community engagement;    Research ethics;   

Others  :  1218614
DOI  :  10.1186/s12910-015-0033-9

 received in 2015-01-12, accepted in 2015-05-26,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Community engagement in research has gained momentum as an approach to improving research, to helping ensure that community concerns are taken into account, and to informing ethical decision-making when research is conducted in contexts of vulnerability. However, guidelines and scholarship regarding community engagement are arguably unsettled, making it difficult to implement and evaluate.

Discussion

We describe normative guidelines on community engagement that have been offered by national and international bodies in the context of HIV-related research, which set the stage for similar work in other health related research. Next, we review the scholarly literature regarding community engagement, outlining the diverse ethical goals ascribed to it. We then discuss practical guidelines that have been issued regarding community engagement. There is a lack of consensus regarding the ethical goals and approaches for community engagement, and an associated lack of indicators and metrics for evaluating success in achieving stated goals. To address these gaps we outline a framework for developing indicators for evaluating the contribution of community engagement to ethical goals in health research.

Summary

There is a critical need to enhance efforts in evaluating community engagement to ensure that the work on the ground reflects the intentions expressed in the guidelines, and to investigate the contribution of specific community engagement practices for making research responsive to community needs and concerns. Evaluation mechanisms should be built into community engagement practices to guide best practices in community engagement and their replication across diverse health research settings.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 MacQueen et al.

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