A scoping review of methods to measure and evaluate citizen engagement in health research

Citizen engagement, or partnering with interested members of the public in health research, is becoming more common. While ongoing assessment of citizen engagement practices is considered important to its success, there is little clarity around aspects of citizen engagement that are important to assess (i.e., what to look for) and methods to assess (i.e., how to measure and/ or evaluate) citizen engagement in health research.

In this scoping review, we included peer-reviewed literature that focused primarily on method(s) to measure and/or evaluate citizen engagement in health research. Independently and in duplicate, we completed title and abstract screening and full-text screening and extracted data including document characteristics, citizen engagement definitions and goals, and methods to measure or evaluate citizen engagement (including characteristics of these methods).

Our search yielded 16,762 records of which 33 records (31 peer-reviewed articles, one government report, one conference proceeding) met our inclusion criteria. Studies discussed engaging citizens (i.e., patients [n = 16], members of the public [n = 7], service users/consumers [n = 4], individuals from specific disease groups [n = 3]) in research processes. Reported methods of citizen engagement measurement and evaluation included frameworks, discussion-based methods (i.e., focus groups, interviews), survey-based methods (e.g., audits, questionnaires), and other methods (e.g., observation, prioritization tasks). Methods to measure and evaluate citizen engagement commonly focused on collecting perceptions of citizens and researchers on aspects of citizen engagement including empowerment, impact, respect, support, and value.

We found that methods to measure and/or evaluate citizen engagement in health research vary widely but share some similarities in aspect of citizen engagement considered important to measure or evaluate. These aspects could be used to devise a more standardized, modifiable, and widely applicable framework for measuring and evaluating citizen engagement in research.

Two citizen team members were involved as equal partners in study design and interpretation of its findings.

Open Science Framework (10.17605/OSF.IO/HZCBR).