Key issues for participatory research in the design and implementation of humanitarian assistance: a scoping review.

Background: Participatory approaches that engage affected populations are increasingly applied in humanitarian health programs in concert with emerging accountability frameworks and the rapid growth of research in these settings. Participatory initiatives within this domain appear to be largely adopted at an operational level and are infrequently reported as a component of research efforts. Yet the evidence of the benefits of research involving community members is growing worldwide.

How does integrated knowledge translation (IKT) compare to other collaborative research approaches to generating and translating knowledge? Learning from experts in the field.

Background: Research funders in Canada and abroad have made substantial investments in supporting collaborative research approaches to generating and translating knowledge as it is believed to increase knowledge use. Canadian health research funders have advocated for the use of integrated knowledge translation (IKT) in health research, however, there is limited research around how IKT compares to other collaborative research approaches. Our objective was to better understand how IKT compares with engaged scholarship, Mode 2 research, co-production and participatory research by identifying the differences and similarities among them in order to provide conceptual clarity and reduce researcher and knowledge user confusion about these common approaches.

A systematic mixed studies review on Organizational Participatory Research: towards operational guidance.

Background: Organizational Participatory Research (OPR) seeks organizational learning and/or practice improvement. Previous systematic literature reviews described some OPR processes and outcomes, but the link between these processes and outcomes is unknown. We sought to identify and sequence the key processes of OPR taking place with and within healthcare organizations and the main outcomes to which they contribute, and to define ideal-types of OPR.

Patient vs. Community Engagement: Emerging Issues.

Background: The value proposition of including patients at each step of the research process is that patient perspectives and preferences can have a positive impact on both the science and the outcomes of comparative effectiveness research. How to accomplish engagement and the extent to which approaches to community engagement inform strategies for effective patient engagement need to be examined to address conducting and accelerating comparative effectiveness research.

Objectives: To examine how various perspectives and diverse training lead investigators and patients to conflicting positions on how best to advance patient engagement.

Patient and public engagement in research and health system decision making: A systematic review of evaluation tools.

Background: Patient and public engagement is growing, but evaluative efforts remain limited. Reviews looking at evaluation tools for patient engagement in individual decision making do exist, but no similar articles in research and health systems have been published.

Objective: Systematically review and appraise evaluation tools for patient and public engagement in research and health system decision making.

Community engagement in global health education supports equity and advances local priorities: an eight year Ecuador-Canada partnership.

Background: Global health education initiatives inconsistently balance trainee growth and benefits to host communities. This report describes a global health elective for medical trainees that focuses on community engagement and participatory research to provide mutually beneficial outcomes for the communities and trainees.

Methods: An eight-year university-community partnership, the Chilcapamba to Montreal Global Health Elective is a two-month shared decision-making research and clinical observership experience in rural Ecuador for medical trainees at McGill University, Canada.

Understanding community-based participatory research through a social movement framework: a case study of the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project.

Background: A longstanding challenge of community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been to anchor evaluation and practice in a relevant theoretical framework of community change, which articulates specific and concrete evaluative benchmarks. Social movement theories provide a broad range of theoretical tools to understand and facilitate social change processes, such as those involved in CBPR. Social movement theories have the potential to provide a coherent representation of how mobilization and collective action is gradually developed and leads to systemic change in the context of CBPR.

Localizing Global Medicine: Challenges and Opportunities in Cervical Screening in an Indigenous Community in Ecuador.

This participatory research study examines the tensions and opportunities in accessing allopathic medicine, or biomedicine, in the context of a cervical cancer screening program in a rural indigenous community of Northern Ecuador. Focusing on the influence of social networks, the article extends research on "re-appropriation" of biomedicine. It does so by recognizing two competing tensions expressed through social interactions: suspicion of allopathic medicine and the desire to maximize one's health.

Organizational participatory research: a systematic mixed studies review exposing its extra benefits and the key factors associated with them.

Background: In health, organizational participatory research (OPR) refers to health organization members participating in research decisions, with university researchers, throughout a study. This non-academic partner contribution to the research may take the form of consultation or co-construction. A drawback of OPR is that it requires more time from all those involved, compared to non-participatory research approaches; thus, understanding the added value of OPR, if any, is important.

Evaluating an Indigenous health curriculum for diabetes prevention: engaging the community through talking circles and knowledge translation of results.

Background: Kahnawà:ke is a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) community in Quebec, Canada. In 1997, the community-controlled Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre in partnership with the Kahnawake Education Center, and the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) developed an elementary school diabetes prevention health education program, aimed to increase knowledge of Type 2 diabetes, healthy eating and active lifestyles. Long-term goals for KSDPP community and school interventions are to decrease obesity and diabetes.

Understanding how Indigenous culturally-based interventions can improve participants' health in Canada.

There is increasing recognition that culturally-based diabetes prevention programs can facilitate the adoption and maintenance of healthy behaviours in the communities in which they are implemented. The Kahnawake School Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) is a health promotion, community-based participatory research project aiming to reduce the incidence of Type 2 diabetes in the community of Kahnawake (Mohawk territory, Canada), with a large range of interventions integrating a Haudenosaunee perspective of health. Building on a qualitative, naturalistic and interpretative inquiry, this study aimed to assess the outcomes of a suite of culturally-based interventions on participants' life and experience of health.

Can we Build on Social Movement Theories to Develop and Improve Community-Based Participatory Research? A Framework Synthesis Review.

A long-standing challenge in community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been to anchor practice and evaluation in a relevant and comprehensive theoretical framework of community change. This study describes the development of a multidimensional conceptual framework that builds on social movement theories to identify key components of CBPR processes. Framework synthesis was used as a general literature search and analysis strategy.

Engagement strategies that foster community self-determination in participatory research: Insider ownership through outsider championship.

Background: In order to maximize the benefits of community-based participatory research, effective ownership over the research process must be at least equally in the hands of the community. A previous social network analysis documented that the participatory research process shifted ownership from academic to community partners, but did not show what actions and strategies fostered this shift.

Objectives: This study follows the trajectory of a community-academic partnership and asks, from the perspective of the project stakeholders, which actions and strategies over the lifespan of the research led to the observed shift in ownership and decision-making from the original external academics to the community stakeholders?

Methods: Qualitative description using inductive thematic analysis.

The shifting dynamics of social roles and project ownership over the lifecycle of a community-based participatory research project.

Background: . Community based participatory research (CBPR) is often initiated by academic researchers, yet relies on meaningful community engagement and ownership to have lasting impact. Little is understood about how ownership shifts from academic to community partners.

Engaging with communities, engaging with patients: amendment to the NAPCRG 1998 Policy Statement on Responsible Research With Communities.

Background: In 1998, the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) adopted a groundbreaking Policy Statement endorsing responsible participatory research (PR) with communities. Since that time, PR gained prominence in primary care research.

Objectives: To reconsider the original 1998 Policy Statement in light of increased uptake of PR, and suggest future directions and applications for PR in primary care.

Active transportation to support diabetes prevention: Expanding school health promotion programming in an Indigenous community.

Background: School-based physical activity (PA) interventions, including school active transportation (AT), provide opportunities to increase daily PA levels, improves fitness, and reduces risk of diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. Based on a community-identified need, the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project, within an Indigenous community, undertook school travel planning to contribute to PA programming for two elementary schools.

Methods: Using community-based participatory research, the Active & Safe Routes to School's School Travel Planning (STP) process was undertaken in two schools with an STP-Committee comprised of community stakeholders and researchers.

The Chilcapamba-McGill Partnership: Exploring Access to Maternal and Newborn Care in Indigenous Communities of Ecuador.

Background: Based on a participatory research (PR) partnership between Family Medicine at McGill University, Canada and the Andean community of Chilcapamba, Ecuador, a medical student study focused on maternal and newborn health.

Objectives: To evaluate the access to maternal and newborn care and the occurrence of intrafamilial violence in women with children 5 years of age or less in three indigenous communities of Ecuador.

Methods: A semistructured survey explored the perinatal and intrapartum care as well as intrafamilial violence.

A realist evaluation of community-based participatory research: partnership synergy, trust building and related ripple effects.

Background: Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach in which researchers and community stakeholders form equitable partnerships to tackle issues related to community health improvement and knowledge production. Our 2012 realist review of CBPR outcomes reported long-term effects that were touched upon but not fully explained in the retained literature. To further explore such effects, interviews were conducted with academic and community partners of partnerships retained in the review.

Critical reflections on realist review: insights from customizing the methodology to the needs of participatory research assessment.

Realist review has increased in popularity as a methodology for complex intervention assessment. Our experience suggests that the process of designing a realist review requires its customization to areas under investigation. To elaborate on this idea, we first describe the logic underpinning realist review and then present critical reflections on our application experience, organized in seven areas.

Successful strategies to engage research partners for translating evidence into action in community health: a critical review.

Objectives: To undertake a critical review describing key strategies supporting development of participatory research (PR) teams to engage partners for creation and translation of action-oriented knowledge.

Methods: Sources are four leading PR practitioners identified via bibliometric analysis. Authors' publications were identified in January 1995-October 2009 in PubMed, Embase, ISI Web of Science and CAB databases, and books.

Dental students' perceptions of and attitudes about poverty: a Canadian participatory case study.

This qualitative case study was conducted in a Canadian dental school using a participatory approach and was based on Paulo Freire's theoretical concept of conscientização, a form of critical consciousness that involves awareness of social reality and fosters action towards social justice. The aim of the study was to understand dental students' perceptions of and attitudes about poverty and dental care provided to people living in poverty. It also examined how these perceptions shape students' plans for their professional careers, as well as their opinions on educational strategies to prepare them to work with poor patients.

Using a participatory approach to the development of a school-based physical activity policy in an Indigenous community.

Background: This study is part of a larger community-based participatory research (CBPR) project to develop, implement, and evaluate the physical activity component of a school-based wellness policy. The policy intervention is being carried out by community stakeholders and academic researchers within the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project, a well-established health promotion organization in the Indigenous community of Kahnawake, Quebec.

Methods: We explored how a group of stakeholders develop a school physical activity policy in a participatory manner, and examined factors serving as facilitators and barriers to the development process.

From policy to practice: implementing frontline community health services for substance dependence--study protocol.

Background: Substance abuse is a worldwide public health concern. Extensive scientific research has shown that screening and brief interventions for substance use disorders administered in primary care provide substantial benefit at relatively low cost. Frontline health clinicians are well placed to detect and treat patients with substance use disorders.