Engaging communities as partners in health crisis response: a realist-informed scoping review for research and policy.

Publisher: BioMed Central Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101170481 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1478-4505 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 14784505 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Health Res Policy Syst Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: [London] : BioMed Central, 2003-

Community Participation* ; Health Policy*; Humans

Background: Health is increasingly affected by multiple types of crises. Community engagement is recognised as being a critical element in successful crisis response, and a number of conceptual frameworks and global guideline documents have been produced. However, little is known about the usefulness of such documents and whether they contain sufficient information to guide effective community engagement in crisis response. We undertake a scoping review to examine the usefulness of conceptual literature and official guidelines on community engagement in crisis response using a realist-informed analysis [exploring contexts, mechanisms, and outcomes(CMOs)]. Specifically, we assess the extent to which sufficient detail is provided on specific health crisis contexts, the range of mechanisms (actions) that are developed and employed to engage communities in crisis response and the outcomes achieved. We also consider the extent of analysis of interactions between the mechanisms and contexts which can explain whether successful outcomes are achieved or not.
Scope and Findings: We retained 30 documents from a total of 10,780 initially identified. Our analysis found that available evidence on context, mechanism and outcomes on community engagement in crisis response, or some of their elements, was promising, but few documents provided details on all three and even fewer were able to show evidence of the interactions between these categories, thus leaving gaps in understanding how to successfully engage communities in crisis response to secure impactful outcomes. There is evidence that involving community members in all the steps of response increases community resilience and helps to build trust. Consistent communication with the communities in time of crisis is the key for effective responses and helps to improve health indicators by avoiding preventable deaths.
Conclusions: Our analysis confirms the complexity of successful community engagement and the need for strategies that help to deal with this complexity to achieve good health outcomes. Further primary research is needed to answer questions of how and why specific mechanisms, in particular contexts, can lead to positive outcomes, including what works and what does not work and how to measure these processes.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)

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NIHR 133333 National Institute for Health and Care Research

Investigator: LS Babawo; N Berhanu; S Koenraadt; D Makonene; SH Mayhew; V Mohan; E Mokuwa; J Namakula; E Ngunjiri; F Ssengooba; H Sseviiri; R Twinomuhangi; A Vandi
Keywords: Collaboration; Community Engagement; Community participation; Crisis response; Emergency; Outbreak; Partnership; Realist review; Resilience; Scoping review

Date Created: 20240506 Date Completed: 20240507 Latest Revision: 20240521

20240521

PMC11075189

10.1186/s12961-024-01139-1

38711067