Cohorts and community: a case study of community engagement in the establishment of a health and demographic surveillance site in Malaysia

摘要

BackgroundCommunity engagement is an increasingly important requirement of public health research and plays an important role in the informed consent and recruitment process. However, there is very little guidance about how it should be done, the indicators for assessing effectiveness of the community engagement process and the impact it has on recruitment, retention, and ultimately on the quality of the data collected as part of longitudinal cohort studies.MethodsAn instrumental case study approach, with data from field notes, policy documents, unstructured interviews, and focus group discussions with key community stakeholders and informants, was used to explore systematically the implementation and outcomes of the community engagement strategy for recruitment of an entire community into a demographic and health surveillance site in Malaysia.ResultsFor a dynamic cohort, community engagement needs to be an ongoing process. The community engagement process has likely helped to facilitate the current respo...