ISSN: 2578-5001
Authors: Damian RS*
Community and Public Engagement (CPE) is increasingly acknowledged as an appropriate approach in healthcare and other policy related research. However, it is also becoming clear that community engagement necessarily involves and is significantly affected by politics. This paper illuminates the manifestations of politics in community engagement research drawing examples from a community-level study that was carried out in Kasulu, a rural district in Tanzania. Specifically, the paper starts by providing some conceptual highlights on community engagement and politics, then it proceeds to show the different forms and shapes that politics can take in community-level research. Further, it argues that community engagement is by its nature a defacto victim of politics. Finally, it suggests workable strategies and tactics that could be considered by community engagement researchers to remedy scientific research from being adulterated by politics. Four strategies that were employed in our project namely creating cognitively aware communities, preparing and orienting stakeholders to engagement guidelines, the use of Community Advisory Committees, and ensuring diversity in all engagement platforms are described and exemplified. If effectively used, these measures can potentially improve the uptake and sustainability of the solutions that community-level healthcare engagement research partnerships tend to generate.
Keywords: Community engagement research; Politics and Politicization; Science adulteration
