ArticleHealth policy and planning2023
Understanding communication in community engagement for maternal and newborn health programmes in low- and middle-income countries: a realist review.
Article in Health policy and planning, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Co-Designing Physical Activity Programmes: A Participatory Research Study With Culturally Diverse Women and Local Government.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2026Article
- How to do (or not to do) realist evaluations to advance theory, practice, and justice in health systems research.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Implementation pathways of a health services delivery redesign model to improve maternal and newborn outcomes in Kenya.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Methods of Engaging Interest-Holders in Healthcare Evidence Syntheses: A Scoping Review.Cochrane evidence synthesis and methods · 2026Review
- Contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of home-based palliative care implementation in low- and middle-income countries: A realist review.Palliative care and social practice · 2026Review
- Community co-design of research intervention materials to reduce cervical cancer disparities in Appalachia.PEC innovation · 2025Article
- We move together: a realist evaluation of the Safe Motherhood Action Groups in Eastern Province, Zambia.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Overcoming recruitment barriers through meaningful community engagement: lessons learned from a maternal-child food insecurity assessment in underserved communities.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Using concept mapping to co-create implementation strategies to address maternal-child food insecurity during the first 1000 days of life.Maternal & child nutrition · 2025Article
- Article
- Mental health policy implementation in low- and middle-income countries: a realist review protocol.PloS one · 2025Article
- Enhanced or hindered research benefits? A realist review of community engagement and participatory research practices for non-communicable disease prevention in low- and middle-income countries.BMJ global health · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
As community engagement (CE) is implemented for sustainable maternal and newborn health (MNH) programming, it is important to determine how these approaches work. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have become a particular focus for MNH CE activities due to their high burden of maternal and neonatal deaths. MNH messaging and communication to engage communities are likely to differ by context, but how these approaches are actually developed and implemented within CE is not well understood. Understanding how communications in CE actually work is vital in the translation of learnings across programmes and to inform future projects. The purpose of this realist review is to describe how, why, to what extent and for whom communications in CE contribute to MNH programming in LMICs. After searching academic databases, grey literature and literature suggested by the expert advisory committee, documents were included if they described the CE communication processes/activities used for MNH programming in an LMIC. Relevant documents were assessed for richness (depth of insight) and rigor (trustworthiness and coherence of data/theories). Data were extracted as context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMOCs) and synthesized into demi-regularities to contribute to theory refinement. After screening 416 records, 45 CMOCs were extracted from 11 documents. This informed five programme theories explaining that communications in CE for an MNH programme work when: communities are actively involved throughout the programme, the messaging and programme are acceptable, communication sources are trusted, the community has a reciprocal relationship with the programme and the community sees value in the programme. While these findings reflect what is often anecdotally known in CE or acknowledged in communications theory, they have implications for policy, practice and research by highlighting the importance of centring the community's needs and priorities throughout the stages of developing and implementing communications for CE in MNH.
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Registered trials
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