The architecture and effect of participation: a systematic review of community participation for communicable disease control and elimination. Implications for malaria elimination

Abstract Background Community engagement and participation has played a critical role in successful disease control and elimination campaigns in many countries. Despite this, its benefits for malaria control and elimination are yet to be fully realized. This may be due to a limited understanding of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Malaria Journal
Main Authors: Whittaker Maxine, Fitzgerald Lisa, Vallely Andrew, Atkinson Jo-An, Tanner Marcel
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: BMC 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-10-225
https://doaj.org/article/e91a5709698b421f80269d5f9698cd7f
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Summary:Abstract Background Community engagement and participation has played a critical role in successful disease control and elimination campaigns in many countries. Despite this, its benefits for malaria control and elimination are yet to be fully realized. This may be due to a limited understanding of the influences on participation in developing countries as well as inadequate investment in infrastructure and resources to support sustainable community participation. This paper reports the findings of an atypical systematic review of 60 years of literature in order to arrive at a more comprehensive awareness of the constructs of participation for communicable disease control and elimination and provide guidance for the current malaria elimination campaign. Methods Evidence derived from quantitative research was considered both independently and collectively with qualitative research papers and case reports. All papers included in the review were systematically coded using a pre-determined qualitative coding matrix that identified influences on community participation at the individual, household, community and government/civil society levels. Colour coding was also carried out to reflect the key primary health care period in which community participation programmes originated. These processes allowed exhaustive content analysis and synthesis of data in an attempt to realize conceptual development beyond that able to be achieved by individual empirical studies or case reports. Results Of the 60 papers meeting the selection criteria, only four studies attempted to determine the effect of community participation on disease transmission. Due to inherent differences in their design, interventions and outcome measures, results could not be compared. However, these studies showed statistically significant reductions in disease incidence or prevalence using various forms of community participation. The use of locally selected volunteers provided with adequate training, supervision and resources are common and important ...