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Community Engagement (CE) is intended to enhance the participation of community stakeholders in research. CE is usually mentioned in publications as researchers discuss how they carried out community entry, consent and retained study participants but the actual CE activities are not always well documented. This paper reviews CE strategies employed in health research in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe with reference to the development of a CE strategy for a multi-centre study to be conducted in these countries. The search was conducted using JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator), Google Scholar and PubMed with known institutions and researchers providing context-specific material. The final synthesis includes 35 publications, 2 reports and 2 abstracts. There is evidence of CE being practiced in health research and eight closely related CE strategies were revealed. We conclude that since communities are heterogeneous and unique, CE activities will not have similar results in different settings. Even though there was insufficient evidence to determine which CE strategy is most effective, the review provides sufficient information to develop a CE strategy for a multi-centre study using the various strategies and activities described.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.actatropica.2016.03.021

Type

Journal article

Journal

Acta Trop

Publication Date

11/2017

Volume

175

Pages

20 - 30

Keywords

Community, Community engagement, Community involvement, Community participation, Community-based research, Africa, Southern, Biomedical Research, Community Participation, Community-Based Participatory Research, Humans