ArticleBMC medical ethics2015
Evaluating community engagement in global health research: the need for metrics.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Understanding the Use of Community Involvement in Rural Food Environment Modifications: A Systematic Review.Current nutrition reports · 2025Pooled it
- Community engagement in research in sub-Saharan Africa: current practices, barriers, facilitators, ethical considerations and the role of gender - a systematic review.The Pan African medical journal · 2022Pooled it
- Stakeholder engagement to inform HIV clinical trials: a systematic review of the evidence.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2018Pooled it
- Trial
- Role of community engagement in maternal health in rural Pakistan: Findings from the CLIP randomized trial.Journal of global health · 2021Trial
- Setting up a clinical trial for a novel disease: a case study of the Doxycycline for the Treatment of Nodding Syndrome Trial - challenges, enablers and lessons learned.Global health action · 2018Trial
- A Population-Based HIV Vaccine Efficacy Trial Design: Statistical Framework and Design Considerations.Vaccines · 2026Review
- Community participation and consultation in palliative and end-of-life care: Building death literacy through a participatory theory of change.Palliative care and social practice · 2026Article
- Overcoming data collection challenges in rural settings by community engagement initiatives: reflections from the research team.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- The precarious state of community engagement in African clinical trials: A systematic review of funding, workforce gaps, and the path to institutionalization.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Integrating socio-behavioral, ethics, community, and translational science considerations in HIV cure research.Current opinion in HIV and AIDS · 2025Review
- Review
- Moving forward together: collaborative strategies in HIV prevention across Africa - a narrative review.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2025Review
- We move together: a realist evaluation of the Safe Motherhood Action Groups in Eastern Province, Zambia.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Effective community engagement in one health research in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review.One health outlook · 2025Review
- Community engagement for artificial intelligence health research in Africa.Wellcome open research · 2025Review
- Lessons from community engagement to improve COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment in Cochabamba, Bolivia.Global health action · 2024Article
- "We have to look deeper into why": perspectives on problem identification and prioritization of women's and girls' health across United Nations agencies.Globalization and health · 2024Article
- The Digital Transformation and the Right to Health of Young Adults in Bangladesh and Colombia: A Community-Engaged Study.Health and human rights · 2024Article
- Community Mobilisation for Human Sample Collection in Sensitive Communities: Experiences from Granular Mapping of Schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Ekiti State, South West, Nigeria.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2024Article
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCommunity 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. 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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.