ArticleBMJ global health2019
Promoting women's and children's health through community groups in low-income and middle-income countries: a mixed-methods systematic review of mechanisms, enablers and barriers.
Article in BMJ global health, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The role of nutrition-sensitive interventions in improving nutritional outcomes: findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal for equity in health · 2025Pooled it
- Implementation characteristics of father-inclusive interventions in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Collective efficacy measures for women and girls in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.BMC women's health · 2022Pooled it
- Community interventions with women's groups to improve women's and children's health in India: a mixed-methods systematic review of effects, enablers and barriers.BMJ global health · 2020Pooled it
- Efficacy of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-Based Online Self-Help Group for Depression and Suicide Ideation: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2026Trial
- "We carried her in a wheelbarrow to the clinic": process evaluation of the AMETHIST intervention combining microplanning with self-help groups to improve HIV prevention and treatment among female sex workers in Zimbabwe.BMC health services research · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Promoting gender equity in a home visits programme: a qualitative study in Northern Nigeria.BMC women's health · 2024Trial
- "There is a light that our wives had not seen before": community perspectives on a gender-responsive maternal health intervention in Western Kenya.Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Bringing Child Health Closer to Families: Lessons From a Family MUAC Intervention in Urban and Rural South Africa.Maternal & child nutrition · 2025Article
- A qualitative study to explore mother's experiences of a family MUAC project in two provinces in South Africa.BMC nutrition · 2025Article
- Institutionalising community participation in decision-making in maternal and newborn health services in low-and middle-income countries: An analysis from 102 national health ministries.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Individual interventions, collective lessons: Developing mid-range theory on women's groups to improve health.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- Remedial, institutional or radical? Explaining community responses to violence against women in an NGO programme to prevent violence in Mumbai, India.World development · 2024Article
- Equity and empowerment effects: Multiple styles of 'voluntarism' in community-based health projects.World development · 2024Article
- Mapping maternal and infant health in Morocco: A global scoping review of themes, gaps, and the "unseen" in the published health research literature, 2000-2022.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Strengthening theories of change in women's group interventions to improve learning.Journal of global health · 2023Article
- Article
- Institutionalising community engagement for quality of care: moving beyond the rhetoric.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Article
- Women's groups, covariate shocks, and resilience: An evidence synthesis of past shocks to inform a response to COVID-19.Gates open research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionCommunity mobilisation through group activities has been used to improve women's and children's health in a range of low-income and middle-income contexts, but the mechanisms through which it works deserve greater consideration. We did a mixed-methods systematic review of mechanisms, enablers and barriers to the promotion of women's and children's health in community mobilisation interventions.
methodsWe searched for theoretical and empirical peer-reviewed articles between January 2000 and November 2018. First, we extracted and collated proposed mechanisms, enablers and barriers into categories. Second, we extracted and synthesised evidence for them using narrative synthesis. We assessed risk of bias with adapted Downs and Black and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklists. We assigned confidence grades to each proposed mechanism, enabler and barrier.
results78 articles met the inclusion criteria, of which 39 described interventions based on a participatory group education model, 19 described community-led structural interventions to promote sexual health in marginalised populations and 20 concerned other types of intervention or multiple interventions at once. We did not have high confidence in any mechanism, enabler or barrier. Two out of 15 proposed mechanisms and 10 out of 12 proposed enablers and barriers reached medium confidence. A few studies provided direct evidence relating proposed mechanisms, enablers or barriers to health behaviours or health outcomes. Only two studies presented mediation or interaction analysis for a proposed mechanism, enabler or barrier.
conclusionWe uncovered multiple proposed mechanisms, enablers and barriers to health promotion through community groups, but much work remains to provide a robust evidence base for proposed mechanisms, enablers and barriers. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42018093695.
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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.