Systematic Review of Quantitative Measures of Stakeholder Engagement

TLDR: The utility of stakeholder engagement has been well established in the literature, but there are few examples of measurement and evaluation of the degree to which stakeholders are engaged in these activities and the impact of engagement on positive outcomes.

Abstract: Stakeholder engagement in research has received increasing attention in recent years1, 2 The term “stakeholder engagement” refers to the process of meaningful involvement of those who are engaged in making decisions about programs3 Engaging members of the target population is often key to improving the relevance of the issues studied, the procedures used for study, and the interpretation of outcomes of research studies, health promotion activities, and disease prevention initiatives4, 5, 6 The utility of stakeholder engagement has been well established in the literature,7, 8, 9 but there are few examples of measurement and evaluation of the degree to which stakeholders are engaged in these activities and the impact of engagement on positive outcomes These types of evaluations have been limited in scope, and largely focused on qualitative approaches10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Qualitative methods cannot be easily compared across programs or institutions15 Necessary reliability and validity information describing self‐reported levels of stakeholder engagement are also lacking, and is essential to identifying the impact of engagement on the scientific process and scientific discovery