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Open research questions in Community Health and Development

147 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 5,002 Community Health and Development papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Given the study relied on a selective sample of willing participants from Australian minority organizations, further research is necessary to understand the context of minority community guidance needs in the interjurisdictional space in which contemporary digital platforms operate, attentive to the differential regulatory practices in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe.

    Minorities, Advocates and Digital Harms: Evaluating Support and Guidance Materials · 2026 · DOI

  • Certain limitations of the presented study must be acknowledged. This article does not examine how recruitment and communication practices influence the decision to volunteer. Addressing this would require including individuals who withdrew before raising a puppy – often due to dissatisfaction with initial contact or training. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding, future research should also consider the perspectives of these ‘would-be’ volunteers. Another area worth exploring is the nature of the opportunities and benefits offered directly by organizations, and how these are perceived by both current and prospective volunteers.

    Affordances and Motivations of Guide Dog Puppy Raisers: Reasons for Starting, Continuing, and Quitting Volunteering · 2026 · DOI

  • Implementation year Year 1 model (n = 32)a Year 2 model (n = 26)b Year 3 model (n = 25)c β 0.13 0.20 0.61 CI 0.004–0.26 0.02–0.37 0.16–1.07 p.04.03.01 Data collection occurred four times: at the start of each of the three implementation years and a follow-up at the end of year 3 a Year 1 model assessed four timepoints—years 1 (baseline), 2, and 3, and follow-up after year 3 b Year 2 model assessed three timepoints—years 2 (baseline) and 3 and follow-up after year 3 c Year 3 model assessed two timepoints—year 3 (baseline) and follow-up after year 3 Though this study was larger (n = 32 intervention) than many other studies of coalitions, such as PROSPER (n = 14 intervention) (Greenberg et al., 2007), Communities That Care (n = 12 intervention) (Arthur et al., 2010), and Getting to Outcomes (n = 2 intervention) (Chinman et al., 2008), this study involved a limited sample of coalitions, and findings should be cautiously interpreted. The final sample may also have become more representative of stronger coalitions than the initial sample. By year 3, three of the 32 coalitions in the initial sample dropped from the study, some of which may have become inoperative. Four of the remaining 29 coalitions at that point did not identify priorities due to leadership changes or loss of funding.

    Improvements in Capacity Among Community Coalitions Receiving Technical Assistance Through the Coalition Check-Up · 2026 · DOI

  • Through qualitative interviews with experts in CTC (n = 15) and validation of findings with Romanian community stakeholders (n = 9), this study examined potential challenges in implementing CTC in Romania, such as lack of evidence-based interventions, resource scarcity, cultural differences, and resistance to change.

    Factors That Contribute to the Contextual Adaptation of Communities That Care for Romania: A Thematic Key Informant Analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • community tri-ethnic through rural in a 43. De Marco M, Kearney W, Smith T, Jones C, Kearney-Powell A, Ammerman A. Growing partners: building a community–academic partnership to address health disparities in rural North Carolina. Prog Community Health Partnerships (2014) 8(2):181–6. doi:10.1353/cpr.2014.0021 44. Derose KP, Williams MV, Branch CA, Flórez KR, Hawes-Dawson J, Mata MA, et al. A community-partnered approach to developing church-based interventions to reduce health disparities among african-americans and latinos. J Racial Ethnic Health Disparities (2018) 6(2):254–64. doi:10.1007/s40615-018-0520-z 45. Dodgen L, Spence-Almaguer E, Cantu Anguiano K, Hooker A, White S. Partnership processes to develop SHE tribe: a healthy lifestyle intervention. Health Promotion Pract (2020) 21(4):591–600. doi:10.1177/1524839918812428 46. English M, Canuto K, Schulenkorf N, Evans J, Curry C, Slater C, et al. Codesigning a health promotion program for Australian Aboriginal and torres strait islander girls: lessons learnt. Health Promotion Int (2023) 38(2):daad011. doi:10. 1093/heapro/daad011 47. Fialkowski MK, Debaryshe B, Bersamin A, Nigg C, Leon Guerrero R, Rojas G, et al. A community engagement process identifies environmental priorities to prevent early childhood obesity: the Children’s healthy living (CHL) program for remote underserved populations in the US affiliated Pacific islands, Hawaii and Alaska. Matern Child Health J (2013) 18(10):2261–74. doi:10.1007/s10995-013-1353-3 63. Ottesen H, Alvesson HM, Idevall Hagren J, Martinell M, Matta L, Mcaleenan P, et al. Codesign with citizens to prevent cardiometabolic diseases in disadvantaged neighbourhoods: an interview study on needs and priorities among stakeholders in Sweden. BMJ Open (2024) 14(11):e090448. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2024-090448 64. Powell N, Dalton H, Perkins D, Considine R, Hughes S, Osborne S, et al. Our healthy clarence: a community-driven wellbeing initiative. Int J Environ Res Public Health (2019) 16(19):3691. doi:10.3390/ijerph16193691 65. Rämgård M, Avery H. Lay health promoters empower neighbourhoods-results from a community-based research programme in southern Sweden. Front Public Health (2022) 10:703423. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.703423 66. Vermeer AJM, Van Assema P, Hesdahl B, Harting J, De Vries NK. Factors influencing perceived sustainability of Dutch community health programs. Health Promot Int (2013) 30(3):473–83. doi:10.1093/heapro/dat059 67. Center for Community Health and Evaluation. The essential elements of effective collaboration (2019). Available online at: https://www.cche.org/index.php/news-andevents/recent-news-and-events/cche-model-successful-collaboration-1 (Accessed July 9, 2025). 68. Koelen MA, Vaandrager L, Wagemakers A. The healthy alliances (HALL) framework: prerequisites for success. Fam Pract (2014) 29(Suppl. 1):i132–i138. doi:10.1093/fampra/cmr088 69. San Martín-Rodríguez L, Beaulieu M, D’Amour D, Ferrada-Videla M. The determinants of successful collaboration: a review of theoretical and empirical studies. (2005) 19(Suppl. 1):132–47.

    Optimizing intersectoral collaboration and citizen participation in community-level health promotion: a scoping review · 2026 · DOI

  • Several acknowledged. Firstly, we limitations of our scoping review should be the definitions of found that concepts of interest to our review, such as health promotion, CP, and public health, varied considerably between studies, or it was unclear how these concepts were defined in the studies. This made it challenging to decide whether a study met our eligibility criteria, possibly resulting in the omission of relevant studies. For example, in some cases, it was difficult to determine whether CP indicated participation in the development of health promotion policies and activities, in the implementation of these activities, or participation in the activities themselves. Secondly, we used ASReview for the title and abstract screening. This proved valuable for efficiently managing the large number of records our search yielded, as it significantly reduced the number of records that needed to be screened. However, a consequence of this approach is that we did not screen all titles and abstracts, which may have resulted in the omission of relevant studies. Finally, it is worth noting that this review was designed to map facilitators and barriers for IC and CP; exploring how these facilitators and barriers relate to each other was beyond its scope.

    Optimizing intersectoral collaboration and citizen participation in community-level health promotion: a scoping review · 2026 · DOI

  • The experiences of mutual aid participants propose a significant ideological shift regarding our sense of care and community when conventional systems are insufficient to meet collective and individual needs, and suggest a need for future expansions of and changes to social work practice to embrace non-hierarchical care.

    Creating Ecosystems of Care Through Mutual Aid · 2024 · DOI

  • The very strength of this method of data collection ‐ the opportunity to listen to those from WP backgrounds ‐ has been limited by the restricted access that outreach practitioners and researchers have had to schools and colleges since early 2020.

    Insights into outreach: the research potential of online focus groups · 2023 · DOI

  • DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: We found that methods to measure and/or evaluate citizen engagement in health research vary widely but share some similarities in aspect of citizen engagement considered important to measure or evaluate.

    A scoping review of methods to measure and evaluate citizen engagement in health research · 2022 · DOI

  • Even though they have been working in the province of Quebec (Canada) for the past 40 years, their practice is poorly documented (especially with families having children aged 0 to 5 years).

    Community Outreach with Families of Young Children: Practices and Impacts in Quebec, Canada · 2021 · DOI

  • Although CBPR has gained in popularity, an explicit examination and evaluation of communication processes and outcomes throughout an entire CBPR project is lacking.

    Examining and evaluating multilevel communication within a mixed-methods, community-based participatory research project in a rural, minority–majority U.S. Town · 2020 · DOI

  • Research limitations/implications Some of the findings, such as the relative importance of embeddedness in fostering willingness to help the community and the relative importance of engagement in fostering willingness to help others, might not be generalizable to VCs where members join for fun and sharing interests.

    The central roles of embeddedness and engagement in virtual communities · 2019 · DOI

  • Limited literacy and technology skills among participants proved to be a challenge and future work should investigate how technology might facilitate use of the tool among participants with lower literacy and technology skills in addition to exploring the feasibility and added value of SenseMaker as an M&E tool in acute humanitarian settings.

    SenseMaker® as a monitoring and evaluation tool to provide new insights on gender-based violence programs and services in Lebanon · 2019 · DOI

  • Although power is central to CBPR, little is known about community partners' experience with empowerment in CBPR with people with developmental disabilities.

    We Are “Both in Charge, the Academics and Self‐Advocates”: Empowerment in Community‐Based Participatory Research · 2018 · DOI

  • The results of the study reported here describe the nature of Extension professionals' work within community coalitions; identify gaps in knowledge particularly related to policy, system, and environment change (PSEC) strategies; and point to professional development opportunities that will improve Extension's ability to work effectively within community coalitions.

    Extension Professionals and Community Coalitions: Professional Development Opportunities Related to Leadership and Policy, System, and Environment Change · 2015 · DOI

  • While the literature on community-based participatory research (CBPR) is substantial regarding the importance of collaborations, few studies have reported on this collaboration in the process of developing measures to assess CBPR projects.

    Collaborative Measurement Development as a Tool in CBPR: Measurement Development and Adaptation within the Cultures of Communities · 2014 · DOI

  • These results offer specific sites for activities to potentially increase donations and community support to CFC while also providing avenues for further research into investigating donating behaviors.

    Salient beliefs underlying donating to Caring for Children in Belize · 2013 · DOI

  • The results of this study revealed that women with the BRCA gene expressed concern for the men in their families, brothers and sons, who had not been tested for the mutation.

    Emerging Advances in Mixed Methods · 2013 · DOI

  • CONTEXT: Policymakers and practitioners continue to pursue initiatives designed to engage individuals in their health and health care despite discordant views and mixed evidence regarding the ability to cultivate greater individual engagement that improves Americans' health and well-being and helps manage health care costs.

    Making Sense of “Consumer Engagement” Initiatives to Improve Health and Health Care: A Conceptual Framework to Guide Policy and Practice · 2013 · DOI

  • The Community Loss Index (CLI), a new social indicator, focuses on the understudied role of place as a source of stress and an aggregator of individual experiences.

    The Community Loss Index: A New Social Indicator · 2013 · DOI

  • This study uses the case of the New York HIV Planning Council to address this gap in the literature, highlighting the benefits and pitfalls of an urban community planning process dominated by service providers from local nonprofit social service organizations whose own organizations are affected by the planning group's decisions.

    The Limits and Potential of Nonprofit Organizations in Participatory Planning: A Case Study of the New York Hiv Planning Council · 2009 · DOI

  • Yet, despite a plethora of initiatives and guidance around ‘participation’ emerging from all levels of government, and a substantial academic literature, there remains a major, and potentially damaging, lack of clarity over many aspects of participation, while the secret of achieving ‘real’ participation appears to continue to remain elusive.

    Marginalised or Enabled Voices? ‘User Participation’ in Policy and Practice · 2008 · DOI

  • By examining a unique and underexplored stage in the life cycle of a community networking project, the end of a networking trial, this article demonstrates how ICTs facilitate community participation and collective action (a) by creating large, dense networks of relatively weak social ties and (b) through the use of ICTs as an organizing tool.

    Grieving for a Lost Network: Collective Action in a Wired Suburb Special Issue: ICTs and Community Networking · 2003 · DOI

  • While health promotion interventions leading to personal behavior change are known to reduce CVD in white, middle class, more educated populations, these approaches have not been widely tested in poor, minority ethnic communities.

    Implementing a Community Intervention Program for Health Promotion · 2002 · DOI

  • Responsible Beverage Service (RBS) refers to the idea that bars and restaurants may be able to have a significant impact on the levels of deaths and injuries associated with alcohol consumption including, but not limited to alcohol-impaired driving.

    Evaluating Specific Community Structural Changes · 1997 · DOI

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147 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 5,002 Community Health and Development papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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