Community participation in general health initiatives in high and upper-middle income countries: A systematic review exploring the nature of participation, use of theories, contextual drivers and power relations in community participation

Publication date: September 2018Source: Social Science & Medicine, Volume 213Author(s): Fiona Leh Hoon Chuah, Aastha Srivastava, Shweta Rajkumar Singh, Victoria Haldane, Gerald Choon Huat Koh, Chia Kee Seng, David McCoy, Helena Legido-QuigleyAbstractCommunity participation is commonly regarded as pivotal in enabling the success of many health initiatives. However, the theoretical constructs, and evidence about the contextual drivers and relational issues that shape participation is lacking. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the evidence for published academic literature on community participation in relation to general, non-disease specific health initiatives, including the use of theories to inform community participation, and the study of contextual drivers and relational issues that influence community participation, with a focus on high and upper-middle income countries. We searched multiple databases including Medline, Embase, Scopus, LILACs and Global Health from January 2000 to September 2016. We screened papers for inclusion, then conducted data extraction and a narrative synthesis of the data. Only papers that focused on general health were included. Disease-specific literature was excluded. 27,232 records were identified, with 23,468 after duplicate removal. 79 papers met our final inclusion criteria. Overall, our findings show that strategies to encourage community participation in health initiatives can be categorized along a continuum that varies f...
Source: Social Science and Medicine - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research