Public Engagement Practices Research Articles

Online availability of antibiotics from within the UK: shifting patterns from 2016 to 2023

Abstract Background We previously reported a cross-sectional analysis of online pharmacy practices and processes. Since then, the demand for and context of online healthcare has changed. However, the current state of access to and usage of antibiotics obtained online remains poorly understood. Objectives This study aimed to: (i) determine the legality of online pharmacies selling antibiotics in the UK; (ii) describe processes for obtaining antibiotics online; (iii) identify antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and patient safety issues; and (iv) compare data with those obtained in 2016 to understand changes in context, and set priorities for targeted research in antibiotic access and usage. Methods Searches for ‘buy antibiotics online’ were conducted using ‘Google’ and ‘Yahoo’. The first 10 websites with unique URL addresses for each were reviewed. Analyses were conducted on evidence of pharmacy registration, prescription requirement, whether choice was ‘prescriber-driven’ or ‘consumer-driven’, and whether information was required (allergies, comorbidities, pregnancy) or given (adverse effects) prior to purchase. Results Twenty unique URL addresses were analysed. Those evidencing UK location (n = 20; 100%) required a prescription and were appropriately registered. For 11 (55%) online pharmacies, decisions were initially consumer-driven for antibiotic choice, but not for dose or duration; contrasting with 2016 when for most (n = 16; 80%), decisions were consumer-driven for antibiotic choice, dose and quantity. Conclusions Variation continues to exist in relation to antibiotic practices online. We make several key recommendations for lawmakers and stakeholders. Targeted research, improved public engagement, professional education and new best practice guidelines are urgently needed for online UK antibiotic suppliers.

Public Engagement in Health Policy-Making for Older Adults: A Systematic Search and Scoping Review.

As the world's population ages, there has been increasing attention to developing health policies to support older adults. Engaging older adults in policy-making is one way to ensure that policy decisions align with their needs and priorities. However, ageist stereotypes often underestimate older adults' ability to participate in such initiatives. This scoping review aims to describe the characteristics and impacts of public engagement initiatives designed to help inform health policy-making for older adults. A systematic search of peer-reviewed and grey literature (English only) describing public engagement initiatives in health policy-making for older adults was conducted using six electronic databases, Google and the Participedia website. No geographical, methodological or time restrictions were applied to the search. Eligibility criteria were purposefully broad to capture a wide array of relevant engagement initiatives. The outcomes of interest included participants, engagement methods and reported impacts. This review included 38 papers. The majority of public engagement initiatives were funded or initiated by governments or government agencies as a formal activity to address policy issues, compared to initiatives without a clear link to a specific policy-making process (e.g., research projects). While most initiatives engaged older adults as target participants, there was limited reporting on efforts to achieve participant diversity. Consultation-type engagement activities were most prevalent, compared to deliberative and collaborative approaches. Impacts of public engagement were frequently reported without formal evaluations. Notably, a few articles reported negative impacts of such initiatives. This review describes how public engagement practices have been conducted to help inform health policy-making for older adults and the documented impacts. The findings can assist policymakers, government staff, researchers and seniors' advocates in supporting the design and execution of public engagement initiatives in this policy sector. Older adult partners from the McMaster University Collaborative for Health and Aging provided strategic advice throughout the key phases of this review, including developing a review protocol, data charting and synthesis and interpreting and presenting the review findings. This collaborative partnership was an essential aspect of this review, enhancing its relevance and meaningfulness for older adults.

Levers and obstacles for implementing public engagement practices in electricity grid development

The scale of change required through the development of new energy infrastructure throughout Europe is vast. The societal dimensions of the energy transition are increasingly recognised as centrally important and approaches to infrastructure development which seek to incorporate such considerations are warranted. EirGrid - Ireland's national electricity transmission operator - through their own historical context, have undergone a journey to develop new strategies for citizen and community engagement with relation to energy grid developments.Here, we reflect upon this journey, situating it within their previous failures and the national context. This process of reflective practice seeks to provide findings for other organisations internationally undertaking a journey towards establishing new engagement practices. The establishment of such practices is critical for enabling deeper societal engagement on the energy transition. A research gap exists in relation to the organisational development of new public engagement practices within institutions tasked with developing infrastructure associated with the energy transition. This creates a challenge whereby ever-increasing calls for public engagement are made, but no lessons exist with relation to how such new practices can be embedded within an organisational strategy. We contribute to this space through answering the research question: what are the key levers and barriers for organisation change towards new forms of public engagement in infrastructure delivery?The reflections outlined through this paper have been provided by individuals in different positions across the organisation. The paper develops key findings which add to the literature in relation to levers and obstacles for implementing public engagement and associated factors.

“Too hot to handle”: Making lost and stolen pets present in virtual space

Pets are socially, culturally, emotionally, and economically entangled in human lives. For humans, pets are loved, and the bond between human and pet extends beyond companionship to incorporate emotional and mental health benefits. Pet theft is a crime that exploits these emotional relationships with pets being stolen for ransom, reward, resale, and breeding. In this paper we explore the emotional geographies of online search/ing for missing and stolen pets. To do so, we utilise interviews with people whose dogs are stolen and have not returned, those whose dogs have been reunited, and with groups dedicated to reuniting missing and stolen pets. We also make use of posts from 20 Twitter/X11After completing the research and writing the paper Twitter was sold and rebranded. On receiving our reviews, we have reoriented our use of language to better reflect X and the language that is used. We will now use X going forward and note here that tweets are now called ‘posts’ and retweets are now called ‘shares’. accounts dedicated to missing and stolen pets. In sharing posts online, humans utilise several search tactics. First, posts are shared with the idea of making pets “too hot to handle”. This involves using images and hashtags to “go viral”. Second, the posts are imbued with emotions, detailing the difficulties of losing a pet. Third, the use of images and descriptions of the pets’ charismatic qualities and characteristics are used to make their pets present online. The findings here have relevance to literature on absence and presence, emotional and digital geographies of human-animal relations, and online identity-making. The paper also provides practical insights into (in)effective strategies of online searching, which can inform public engagement practices of lost and stolen animal support groups and individuals looking to make lost and stolen pets present in virtual space.

Applicability of Q-methodology in public engagement practice for large urban park development – Case of Seoul Yongsan Park

This study explores the applicability of Q-methodology as an evaluative tool in urban park development projects, assessing its effectiveness for public engagement practices and uncovering nuanced perspectives often overlooked in conventional large-scale programs. While Q-methodology is renowned for its quantitative analysis of qualitative data, its potential as a qualitative method remains underexplored. Combining Q-methodology with 1:1 interviews, utilizing Q-sort sets as guides, allows participants in the Yongsan Park Development Project (YPDP) to articulate detailed interpretations of their positions. Analyzing 20 participants' perspectives revealed five distinct factor groups, emphasizing preferences for a ‘park with a unique identity,’ ‘pastoral landscape park,’ ‘cultural activities park,’ ‘economically efficacious park,’ and “a ‘public’ park.” Notably, a majority favored a park with a unique identity, aligning with previous public engagement outcomes. Unprecedentedly, the study identifies heightened interest in the project's economic effectiveness, vital for YPDP's future viability. The findings underscore Q-methodology's efficacy in evaluating past public engagement outcomes, offering a valuable tool for navigating evolving contexts in long-term, large-scale urban park development. The study advocates for governmental engagement practices to experiment with diverse methodologies and participant scopes to enhance understanding of public needs and perspectives.

Constructing the public in public perceptions research: A case study of forest genomics.

Contemporary scientific and technological endeavours face public and political pressure to adopt open, transparent and democratically accountable practices of public engagement. Prior research has identified different ways that experts 'imagine publics' - as uninformed, as disengaged, as a risk to science, and as co-producers of knowledge - but there has yet to be a systematic exploration of how these views emerge, interact and evolve. This article introduces a typology of imagined publics to analyse how publics are constructed in the field of forest genomics. We find that deficit views of publics have not been replaced by co-production. Instead, deficit and co-productive approaches to publics co-exist and overlap, informing both how publics are characterized and how public perceptions are studied. We outline an agenda for deepening and expanding research on public perceptions of novel technologies. Specifically, we call for more diverse and complex methodological approaches that account for relational dynamics over time.

Towards inclusive PE for science granting councils in Sub-Saharan Africa: challenges and opportunities

Inclusive public engagement (PE), an approach that recognizes the plurality of gender identities, is crucial for science reach, uptake, and impact. This study explored the PE activities of 15 science granting councils in Sub-Saharan Africa to identify existing practices, their strengths, and barriers to inclusive PE practices. Key informant interviews were used to elicit data, with additional data collected through a digital audit of the 15 councils. The study established that SGC activities demonstrate relatively good alignment with their PE mandate. Initiatives have been developed and implemented, although there are areas that need strengthening. Some of the key areas that need strengthening are the lack of commitment to multilingual knowledge transfer using local languages; the explicit inclusion of women in policies and programs, the diversification of engagement platforms and tools to address the urban-rural divide and the digital divide.

Series: Public engagement with research. Part 1: The fundamentals of public engagement with research

BackgroundIn the first of a four-part series, we describe the fundamentals of public engagement in primary care research.ObjectivesThe article’s purpose is to encourage, inform and improve the researcher’s awareness about public engagement in research. For a growing number of researchers, funders and patient organisations in Europe, public engagement is a moral and ethical imperative for conducting high-quality research.DiscussionStarting with an explanation of the role of public engagement in research, we highlight its diversity and benefits to research, researchers and the public members involved. We summarise principles of good practice and provide valuable resources for researchers to use in their public engagement activities. Finally, we discuss some of the issues encountered when researchers collaborate with members of the public and provide practical steps to address them. Case studies of real-life situations are used to illustrate and aid understanding.ConclusionWe hope this article and the other papers in this series will encourage researchers to better consider the role and practice of public engagement and the potential added value to research that collaborating with the public could provide.

The development of public engagement as a core institutional role for parliaments

ABSTRACT Public engagement has become a noticeable activity for parliaments across the world. However, we lack understanding of its role despite considerable developments in scholarly work on public engagement in the sciences and on deliberative and participatory democracy by social scientists. This article provides a framework to understand the significance of parliamentary public engagement and to evaluate its effectiveness. It explains how parliamentary public engagement has emerged because of a representational shift in who is doing the representing in parliament and in what is represented, following key societal changes. We define parliamentary public engagement, showing the importance of differentiating between the activity, its effects and broader democratic ideals. We identify information and education as the types of engagement activity most developed by parliaments, with much still to do in consultation and participation activities. The article finishes with a discussion of seven key challenges in developing and implementing effective institutional parliamentary public engagement practices.

AN ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS BASED INTEGRATED PERFORMANCE EVALUATION INDEX MODEL PROPOSAL FOR MUNICIPALITIES IN TURKEY

Municipalities across Turkey are expected to adopt the principles of transparency, accountability, sound financial management and open ethical public engagement practices that include the provision and use of communication tools to facilitate an effective and clear voice within, and on behalf of the community. In this study, annual reports published by 29 Metropolitan Municipalities in Turkey between 2018 and 2020 were examined for the purpose of digitizing social data using content analysis methodology. An index model proposal and a performance measurement evolved based upon the opinions of 12 experts utilizing the “analytical hierarchy process” technique of “multi-criteria decision making” methods.

CITIZENS' RIGHTS TO PARTICIPATE IN STATE MANAGEMENT IN LOCALITIES IN VIETNAM

In modern society, public engagement in state administration operations carried out by local authorities is among the fundamental features of the structure and operation of a democratic state. Nonetheless, their degree of populace participation reflects each nation's democracy and civilization. In this study, the author focuses on examining the content and practices of public engagement in management operations carried out by local authorities in Vietnam within the applicable legal frameworks. The author points out constraints, such as the people can take part in and decide on some of the local development management tasks, namely infrastructure construction and undertaking public welfare works funded by themselves; whether they are taken part in the development of programs and projects and request local authorities to examine and carry out them is not clearly stated. The author argues that the issue involving extending people's rights to participate in management activities carried out by local authorities has to be investigated and developed from that practice.

Turning public engagement into standard practice: institutionalisation in the work of the South African Parliament

ABSTRACT Previous research and observed practices demonstrate that as hubs of public participation in governance, parliaments are devising means and prioritising resources that promote more public-facing initiatives to reach out to different segments of society. The diverse means through which these happen, across contexts, pose the ‘danger’ of randomness and spontaneity which ultimately limits institutional memory and consistency. This article explores how parliaments can enhance content and outcomes through the institutionalisation of public engagement. It demonstrates how legal and institutional frameworks – as a system of rules and formalised standards – are combined to set clearly defined templates, and how these align with processes for enhanced public engagement practices. In using South Africa to frame its analysis, the article draws on the 2022 IPU-UNDP Global Parliamentary Report interviews and document analysis of relevant frameworks and reports. We show how leveraging historical, geographic, social-linguistics, and demographic contexts help to strengthen parliament-public interface through institutionalisation.

Approaching accessibility: Four opportunities to address the needs of disabled people in transportation planning in the United States

In common transportation planning practice and research, disability is largely mistreated and oversimplified. This review essay identifies four shortcomings in U.S. transportation planning that perpetuate oversight, exclusion, and inadequate transportation systems for disabled people. Compliance-based agendas are used by public agencies to implement accessibility accommodations based on minimum requirements, failing to consider the everyday experiences of disabled people. Data gaps and access to opportunity assumptions reveal how transportation planning and analysis approaches are inadequate when considering the disability community. Lastly, the narrow focus on mobility disability in the transportation field ignores the diversity of human conditions. These existing challenges are defined in detail with examples of how disability justice ideas and inclusive public engagement practices can address each shortcoming. Meaningful public engagement with the disability community would improve how transportation planning, policy, and practice address the needs and lived experiences of this critical population group.

“One might tweet just for money”: Organisational and institutional incentives for researchers’ social media communication and public engagement practices

The changing media landscape and proliferation of social media potentially increase agency amongst researchers to communicate individually. It also points to a need for studying science communication at an organisational level to understand how science communication activities can be collectively organised to have a substantial impact. Despite these changes, there are ongoing questions regarding the perceived value of science communication and the ways in which it can receive institutional support in credit-driven academic cultures. Therefore, this study set out to explore how incentives relate to researchers’ communication activity and how these can be influenced by digital communication contexts. This article presents a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 17 researchers and 15 communication professionals in Finland. Results indicate that academic leaders are in the key position to support organisational science communication culture, and their acknowledgement for science communication can be more effective than encouragement from in-house communication staff. This suggests that there may be a key gap vis-à-vis training in science communication and engagement which is targeted towards scientific and organisational leaders. The results also imply there is enduring value in communication activities featuring in periodical performance evaluation and that analytic data from digital media endeavours can form an intrinsic reward.

Public Engagement Practices in EC-Funded RRI Projects: Fostering Socio-Scientific Collaborations

The ‘ambiguity’ of Research and Innovation (R&I) within the present contemporary society triggers increasing manifestations of public concerns concerning science. Apart from some implications it has, this mistrust also functions as a stimuli towards integrating the public view and public (social) needs into the development and implementation of R&I policies. With reference to European communities, the European Commission (EC) has provided funding to various projects aiming to capitalise on the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and the RRI ‘key’ of Public Engagement (PE) in order to engage the public in R&I, enhance a human-centric and inclusive R&I approach, and ultimately foster a mutually responsible relation between science and society. This study aims to examine how PE practices are implemented within the context of EC-funded projects addressing RRI-driven public engagement. Seventeen PE practices that have been implemented during the lifespan of five EC projects were qualitatively and thematically analysed. The identified themes indicate the implementation patterns of PE and contribute to reaching a set of conclusions towards realising a participatory, human-centric and inclusive R&I, fostering in its own turn future socio-scientific collaborations. Policy-makers, researchers, practitioners and stakeholders interested in public engagement in R&I can capitalise on the study’s conclusions and contribute to manifestations of responsible innovation.

Public engagement and argumentation in science

Public engagement is one of the fundamental pillars of the European programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020. The programme encourages engagement that not only fosters science education and dissemination, but also promotes two-way dialogues between scientists and the public at various stages of research. Establishing such dialogues between different groups of societal actors is seen as crucial in order to attain epistemic as well as social desiderata at the intersection between science and society. However, whether these dialogues can actually help attaining these desiderata is far from obvious. This paper discusses some of the costs, risks, and benefits of dialogical public engagement practices, and proposes a strategy to analyse these argumentative practices based on a three-tiered model of epistemic exchange. As a case study, we discuss the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, arguably a result of suboptimal public engagement, and show how the proposed model can shed new light on the problem.

An art museum in every mall? Persuasive spaces for contemporary art in China

ABSTRACT This paper offers a critical consideration of the proliferation of art museums situated in shopping malls in China. Creating interventions of art and the art museum within retail structures can be conceptually understood as a synthesis development model, whereby the combination of art and commerce is adopted by real estate enterprises in China. The operational characteristics of mall museums reflect a growing tendency for art to be used instrumentally to align with everyday life: an aestheticisation of the ordinary. In the late twentieth century, postmodernism placed great emphasis on the blurring of boundaries between art and everyday life, signalling the collapse of the distinction between high art and mass/popular culture [Baudrillard, Jean. 1983. Simulations. New York: Semiotext; Featherstone, Mike. 1990. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, 64–80. London: SAGE Publications]. Nonetheless, through the example of the Chi Shanghai K11 Art Mall, this paper considers public engagement practices where ‘art is for the masses’ within such structures to explore whether curatorial strategies and art practices are influenced through a constant adaptation into ‘art museum retail’. It also aims to consider whether the development of these ‘persuasive spaces’ thus has the potential to include experimentation and knowledge production.

Shelving Issues: Patrolling the Boundaries of Democratic Discussion in Public Meetings

Democratic participation is widely viewed as a crucial underpinning of legitimate governance; however, little is known about how this participation is practically accomplished. This study contributes to a better understanding of what democratic citizenship encompasses in actual practices of public engagement. Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, we analyze interactions between government officials and citizens in Dutch public meetings on the effects of livestock farming. We examine situations where citizens treat officials’ closing-implicative moves as “wanting to shelve” issues. We demonstrate how this uptake is preceded by officials treating citizens as not understanding what is within the scope of discussion, thereby challenging their democratic competence. Citizens subsequently turn the tables on the officials, treating them as not wanting to fulfill their democratic duties. We argue that these practices point to broader relational issues between government and citizens, transforming what seem mere agenda issues into negotiations about what constitutes good democracy.

Institutionalizing public engagement in research and innovation: Toward the construction of institutional entrepreneurial collectives

Abstract In the past decades we have seen increased policy discourse around public engagement with research and innovation. Despite this attention, the institutionalization of public engagement practices still appears rather limited, leading to a recent systemic turn in public engagement with science studies. Still missing in this systemic turn is a pragmatist and new institutionalist framework that can support research into how public engagement practices may enact or transform the research and innovation system. This article presents such a framework to help untangle how existing (in)formal institutions and materialities influence public engagement with research and innovation. To illustrate its utility, the framework is tentatively applied to engagement in the British research funding context. This application informs further development of the framework, including recommendations for (action) research into the construction of collectives of institutional entrepreneurs (institutional entrepreneurial collectives) that may support further institutionalization of public engagement in the research and innovation system.

Conflict resolution and community engagement in post-audit EIA environmental management: Lessons learned from a mining community in Thailand

Conflicts between communities and projects continue to erupt and are still not being resolved smoothly despite the implementation of environmental impact assessment (EIA). The objective of this study was to understand the causes of conflict between a community and a development project, and identify ways to prevent the conflict through post-audit EIA engagement efforts. The relationship and attitude of the villagers of Ban U-Mung (the mining community) towards a local iron mine were studied by conducting community surveys through questionnaires, focus groups and in-depth interviews. As potential heavy metal pollution was among the main concerns for the villagers, soil and water samples were collected and tested for contamination. The heavy metals concentrations were compared to those in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The results revealed that all heavy metal concentrations except arsenic were under national soil quality standards and did not change significantly from the original results. The villagers’ concerns were due to a lack of information from the project and led to conflict between these two parties even after post-audit EIA. The surveys revealed that the villagers wanted a more active role in the post-audit EIA period and to be informed about the impacts from the project. To prevent conflict with communities, this paper recommends that the post-audit EIA needs to be improved with more proactive, transparent and collaborative public engagement policies and practices. Communities must be provided with adequate information, tools and opportunities to make informed decisions about the future of development projects that have direct impacts on their livelihoods.