Measuring Community-Engaged Research Contexts, Processes, and Outcomes: A Mapping Review.

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Services Research
• Community-Based Research

Background:

• Community-engaged research (CEnR) is crucial for addressing public health challenges and requires demonstrating its value.
• Current evaluations often focus on project-specific outcomes, hindering the assessment of CEnR's broader impact.
• Partnerships struggle to identify appropriate measures beyond process evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically identify and characterize measures for evaluating community-engaged research (CEnR).
• To aid partnerships in selecting appropriate measures for assessing CEnR projects.
• To identify areas needing further development of evaluation measures.

Main Methods:

• A mapping review of electronic databases (2009-2018) and unpublished CEnR projects.
• Identification and abstraction of 69 generalizable measures for CEnR context, process, and outcomes.
• Cataloging measures by purpose, aim, and specific domains.

Main Results:

• Identified 28 context measures, 43 process measures (e.g., trust, group dynamics), and 43 outcome measures (e.g., benefits, capacity changes).
• Found significant variation in how partnerships conceptualize and define similar evaluation domains.
• Highlighted the need for consistency in measurement to reduce confusion.

Conclusions:

• A hybrid approach combining common metrics with locally relevant measures can meet CEnR's diverse goals.
• An interactive data visualization tool is provided to support partnership evaluation efforts.
• Standardized measurement can strengthen the evidence base for community-engaged research.