Participatory approaches that engage communities in evaluations is now widely recognised as a critical approach to generating reliable evidence on the appropriateness, feasibility, acceptability, efficacy and effectiveness of complex interventions to improve health outcomes. 

The inclusion of communities to develop and deliver interventions, services, policy and research that affects them leads to interventions and research that reflects diversity of needs. Participatory approaches aim to interrupt power imbalances by involving members of affected communities in designing, conducting and disseminating research, in recognition of lived expertise. It can ensure that evaluations respond to community priorities and drives related action. 

At the Centre for Evaluation, we are considering the application of participatory practices and co-production in the evaluation of complex public health interventions. Applying participatory practices in evaluations is central to much of our members’ work and we provide a platform to bring this work together, to synthesise learning from the application, development and critique of participatory methodologies.

Here are some initiatives the Centre has led in participatory approaches:

Critical Co-Production in Public Health: Perspectives from LSHTM staff, collaborators and funders

Organised by the Centre, the panel consisted of experts from the National Institute for Health and Social Care including Joanne Lally, the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) lead for the Research Design Service in North East and North Cumbria and Gary Hickey, Senior Research Manager, PPI and Engagement. LSHTM staff included Alicia Renedo, Associate Professor, DEPTH research group, Praveena Fernes, PhD Student and Research Assistant and Carl May Professor of Health Systems Implementation. The panel shared approaches to co-production methods in public health, delving into practical applications and challenges they had faced.

Key themes included the importance of developing and maintaining relationships to facilitate co-production and the tensions between the time needed for this against time-limited lifecycles of project funding. Discussions included considerations of the complexity of evaluating impact of interventions and the value of co-production to evolve and adapt to different contexts and needs of populations against rigid standardised framework that institutions are required to report against.

Contributions to the Co-Production Futures Inquiry

The Centre has collated and submitted evidence from across LSHTM to contribute to the Co-Production Futures Inquiry to highlight the work going on at LSHTM and some of the challenges in relation to the core themes of focus: fair funding, equitable partnerships, responsible metrics and negotiated ethics.

Book chapter: Community involvement in evaluation research

Members of the Centre for Evaluation have collaborated on a chapter entitled: ‘Community involvement in evaluation research: towards transformation’. This will be published in September 2026 as part of the textbook: Evaluating Public Health Interventions. 

The Centre are currently working on:

• Developing methods of participatory practices by evaluating their use in evaluative research, and we welcome discussion on this.
• Expanding CfE membership to include more community groups.
• Supporting and developing the work of the LSTHM network ‘Critical voices of coproduction’ as part of the Centre for Evaluation.