Meaningful community engagement - the foundations of global oral health research

The global burden of oral diseases and shocking inequalities highlight the failure of current oral health systems and policies. One of the limitations with existing approaches is that they rely almost exclusively on professional perspectives with minimal input from communities, and in particular disadvantaged populations. As a consequence, interventions often fail to achieve sustained improvements and have limited impact in reducing inequalities. Within global health, there is growing recognition on the importance of meaningful community engagement in all aspects of policy, practice and research.

The CORE global oral health research programme is being conducted in four middle-income countries (Brazil, India, Colombia and Kenya) and an innovative element is that the planned research will be informed by community engagement with disadvantaged communities. Through a process of co-design, local communities will be actively involved in designing, implementing and evaluating interventions. The planned community engagement activities include community mapping, establishment of community forums, appointment of community link workers, and community outreach activities including visual and performing arts events.

The aim of this commentary is to critically review the policy context and principles of community engagement, and to reflect on insights gained through the initial engagement activities undertaken as part of the CORE programme.