Search

Background: In the rush to develop health technologies for the COVID-19 pandemic, the unintended consequence of digital health inequity or the inability of priority communities to access, use, and receive equal benefits from digital health technologies was not well examined., Objective: This scoping review will examine tools and approaches that can be used during digital technology innovation to improve equitable inclusion of priority communities in the development of digital health technologies. The results from this study will provide actionable insights for professionals in health care, health informatics, digital health, and technology development to proactively center equity during innovation., Methods: Based on the Arksey and O'Malley framework, this scoping review will consider priority communities' equitable involvement in digital technology innovation. Bibliographic databases in health, medicine, computing, and information sciences will be searched. Retrieved citations will be double screened against the inclusion and exclusion criteria using Covidence (Veritas Health Innovation). Data will be charted using a tailored extraction tool and mapped to a digital health innovation pathway defined by the Centre for eHealth Research roadmap for eHealth technologies. An accompanying narrative synthesis will describe the outcomes in relation to the review's objectives., Results: This scoping review is currently in progress. The search of databases and other sources returned a total of 4868 records. After the initial screening of titles and abstracts, 426 studies are undergoing dual full-text review. We are aiming to complete the full-text review stage by May 30, 2024, data extraction in October 2024, and subsequent synthesis in December 2024. Funding was received on October 1, 2023, from the Centre for Health Equity Incubator Grant Scheme, University of Melbourne, Australia., Conclusions: This paper will identify and recommend a series of validated tools and approaches that can be used by health care stakeholders and IT developers to produce equitable digital health technology across the Centre for eHealth Research roadmap. Identified evidence gaps, possible implications, and further research will be discussed., International Registered Report Identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/53855., (©Kara Burns, Shoshana Bloom, Cecily Gilbert, Bronwen Merner, Mahima Kalla, Sreshta Sheri, Cleva Villanueva, Amio Matenga Ikihele, Lama Nazer, Raymond Francis Sarmiento, Lindsay Stevens, Ngaree Blow, Wendy Chapman. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 05.06.2024.)

Introduction: Longitudinal studies can provide timely and accurate information to evaluate and inform COVID-19 control and mitigation strategies and future pandemic preparedness. The Optimise Study is a multidisciplinary research platform established in the Australian state of Victoria in September 2020 to collect epidemiological, social, psychological and behavioural data from priority populations. It aims to understand changing public attitudes, behaviours and experiences of COVID-19 and inform epidemic modelling and support responsive government policy., Methods and Analysis: This protocol paper describes the data collection procedures for the Optimise Study, an ongoing longitudinal cohort of ~1000 Victorian adults and their social networks. Participants are recruited using snowball sampling with a set of seeds and two waves of snowball recruitment. Seeds are purposively selected from priority groups, including recent COVID-19 cases and close contacts and people at heightened risk of infection and/or adverse outcomes of COVID-19 infection and/or public health measures. Participants complete a schedule of monthly quantitative surveys and daily diaries for up to 24 months, plus additional surveys annually for up to 48 months. Cohort participants are recruited for qualitative interviews at key time points to enable in-depth exploration of people's lived experiences. Separately, community representatives are invited to participate in community engagement groups, which review and interpret research findings to inform policy and practice recommendations., Ethics and Dissemination: The Optimise longitudinal cohort and qualitative interviews are approved by the Alfred Hospital Human Research Ethics Committee (# 333/20). The Optimise Study CEG is approved by the La Trobe University Human Ethics Committee (# HEC20532). All participants provide informed verbal consent to enter the cohort, with additional consent provided prior to any of the sub studies. Study findings will be disseminated through public website (https://optimisecovid.com.au/study-findings/) and through peer-reviewed publications., Trial Registration Number: NCT05323799., Competing Interests: Competing interests: Burnet Institute has received investigator initiated clinical research funding form Gilead Sciences, AbbVie and Merck unrelated to this grant., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: There is a global shortage of health providers in abortion care. Public discourse presents abortion providers as dangerous and greedy and links 'conscience' with refusal to participate. This may discourage provision. A scoping review of empirical evidence is needed to inform public perceptions of the reasons that health providers participate in abortion., Objective: The study aimed to identify what is known about health providers' reasons for participating in abortion provision., Eligibility Criteria: Studies were eligible if they included health providers' reasons for participating in legal abortion provision. Only empirical studies were eligible for inclusion., Sources of Evidence: We searched the following databases from January 2000 until January 2022: Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, Excerpta Medica Database, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, ScienceDirect and Centre for Agricultural and Biosciences International Abstracts. Grey literature was also searched., Methods: Dual screening was conducted of both title/abstract and full-text articles. Health providers' reasons for provision were extracted and grouped into preliminary categories based on the existing research. These categories were revised by all authors until they sufficiently reflected the extracted data., Results: From 3251 records retrieved, 68 studies were included. In descending order, reasons for participating in abortion were as follows: supporting women's choices and advocating for women's rights (76%); being professionally committed to participating in abortion (50%); aligning with personal, religious or moral values (39%); finding provision satisfying and important (33%); being influenced by workplace exposure or support (19%); responding to the community needs for abortion services (14%) and participating for practical and lifestyle reasons (8%)., Conclusion: Abortion providers participated in abortion for a range of reasons. Reasons were mainly focused on supporting women's choices and rights; providing professional health care; and providing services that aligned with the provider's own personal, religious or moral values. The findings provided no evidence to support negative portrayals of abortion providers present in public discourse. Like conscientious objectors, abortion providers can also be motivated by conscience.

Background: Community engagement is key to developing local and context-specific strategies for the prevention and control of COVID-19. However, expedited research design and approval in the early days of the pandemic may have limited the opportunities for community members to influence pandemic-related research. In this study, we sought to understand how a Community Engagement Group (CEG) could impact a large longitudinal COVID-19 research project (Optimise), when involved solely in the interpretation and knowledge translation phases of the research., Methods: Seven community members were recruited for the CEG, representing a diverse range of groups. Each month, Optimise data of topical importance were compiled into a draft report. The CEG discussed the draft report at their monthly meeting and members' contributions were incorporated into the final report for distribution to policy-makers. In this study, a document analysis was undertaken of ten consecutive reports produced between February and November 2021. Each report was compared pre- and post- the inclusion of CEG contributions, which were then analysed using thematic analysis., Results: Community engagement in the interpretation and knowledge translation phases of Optimise had positive impacts on reports for policy-makers, including grounding the empirical findings in broader community perspectives, identifying policy issues affecting different groups and contributing unique insights beyond the empirical findings. Overall, the CEG contributions demonstrated the complexity of lived experience lying beneath the empirical data., Conclusion: Community engagement in the translation of the Optimise findings resulted in research reports to policy-makers that were reflective of a broader range of community perspectives, and that provided potential solutions to emerging policy issues related to COVID-19. This study adds to the evidence base about the impact of community engagement in the later interpretation and knowledge translation phases of research, particularly in the context of reporting to policy-makers during a public health emergency., (© 2024 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.)