Welcome - Africa (Mesh-Literature)

Published Literature: Learning From Participatory Visual Methods in Marginalized South African Communities

In this paper from Frontiers in Public Health, Steps Toward Engagement Integrity: Learning From Participatory Visual Methods in Marginalized South African Communities (2022), authors Gill Black and Pam Sykes describe their 'Bucket Loads of Health project in South Africa.

Literature: Trust and Health Research in Developing Countries: Summary of the issues (Wellcome Trust, 2013)

This literature review was written by Dorcus Kamuya for the Wellcome Trust's fifth international engagement workshop. It focuses on trust in the context of health research in developing countries and highlights a range of challenges affecting levels of trust.

Published Literature: How can community engagement in health research be strengthened for infectious disease outbreaks in Sub-Saharan Africa? A scoping review of the literature

This literature review, published in 2021 and funded by ALERRT, looks at the body of knowledge that has been developed for community engagement specifically as it applies to emerging infectious disease outbreaks in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Published Literature: Involving young people in health research

This study published by Wellcome in 2021 explores the role, benefits and potential of young people’s involvement in health research, with a focus on mental health, infectious diseases and global heating. It provides recommendations on how to meaningfully involve young people in research, and what it means to do that well.

COVID-19 Community Engagement In South Africa: The Time Is Now

This article addresses community engagement around the COVID-19 outbreak in South Africa in April 2020 and proposes a free-to-use mobile app as well as a longer-term Community Engagement Nerve Centre for the country

Literature: Who should decide about children’s and adolescents’ participation in health research?

This paper from BMC Medical Ethics explores how researchers and research centres can activtly involve children and young people in health research activities and in the development of research proposals. They used group discussions with community members and schools students in rural Kenya to explore views on the topic.

Academic Literature: Conventional Wisdom versus Actual Outcomes: Challenges in the Conduct of an Ebola Vaccine Trial in Liberia during the International Public Health Emergency

This paper is an assessment of a phase II, randomized controlled trial of an Ebola vaccine undertaken in Liberia during the 2014-15 West African outbreak.

Academic literature: Trust, fear, stigma and disruptions: community perceptions and experiences during periods of low but ongoing transmission of Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone, 2015

LITERATURE: Engaging 'Communities': Anthropological Insights from the West African Ebola Epidemic

This article, by Wilkinson et al. 2017, deconstructs notions of 'community', and the ways it is conceptualised and understood, in order to critically reflect upon methods of engaging 'communities' during the west African Ebola epidemic in 2014. 

Literature: Research Report - An Exploration of the Lived Experience of African Journalists During the 2014 Ebola Crisis

This research report from the World Federation of Science Journalists explores the lived experience of African journalists during the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa with the aim of highlighting key professional, technological and social aspects required for effective journalism during emergency and post-outbreak periods.

Article: Evaluating public communication of science and technology: The case of the Ebola virus

This article analyses media coverage and public communications over the time of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa 2013-2016 with a focus on the interations between scientifically grounded information and messages from cultural and religious actors. 

Literature: Beginning community engagement at a busy biomedical research programme: Experiences from the KEMRI CGMRC-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (Kilifi, Kenya)

An article published in Social Science & Medicine summarising the rationale for community engagement in research. The article draws upon published literature and local findings to outline the process of community engagement in Kilifi, Kenya and to describe issues emerging from its development and early implementation. It also briefly reviews literature on Community Advisory Boards and a range of related ethical, methodological and contextual issues related to developing effective methods for community engagement.

Literature: Engaging diverse communities participating in clinical trials: case examples from across Africa

This article focuses on community engagement activities employed at various AMANET-supported clinical trial sites in different countries, highlighting subtle differences in the approaches used. The paper also gives some general pros and cons of community engagement.