RESEARCH ARTICLE Community Participation in Health Systems Research: A Systematic Review Assessing the State of Research, the Nature of Interventions Involved and the Features of Engagement with Communities

Background Community participation is a major principle of people centered health systems, with consid-erable research highlighting its intrinsic value and strategic importance. Existing reviews largely focus on the effectiveness of community participation with less attention to how com-munity participation is supported in health systems intervention research. Objective To explore the extent, nature and quality of community participation in health systems inter-vention research in low- and middle-income countries. Methodology We searched for peer-reviewed, English language literature published between January 2000 and May 2012 through four electronic databases. Search terms combined the con-cepts of community, capability/participation, health systems research and low- and middle-income countries. The initial search yielded 3,092 articles, of which 260 articles with more than nominal community participation were identified and included. We further exclude