Introduction: Health promotion interventions have struggled to engage men, with men being on average only 1/3 of intervention participants. Gender-sensitised programs aim to tailor interventions to the needs of men, however, to be effective men need to be involved in the design and delivery of these programs. Participatory engagement provides an opportunity for men and relevant stakeholders to be involved in the design and delivery of health programs. Increasing the use of participatory engagement aligns with recommendations from knowledge translation and implementation science to improve uptake of research in practice. How participatory methods are being used to tailor health programs for men has yet to be explored. The aim of this study was to understand how participatory methods are being used to tailor health programs to men.
Methods: A systematic literature search with no date restrictions was conducted across four databases. Included studies targeted adult (≥18 years) men’s health-related behavioural change including physical activity, nutritional behaviour, smoking cessation, and/or alcohol reduction. Studies utilised both randomised and non-randomised designs. Risk of bias was assessed for randomised (ROB2 tool) and non-randomised (ROBINS-I tool) control trials. A qualitative analysis of study outcomes and the use of participatory methods was conducted with study variables being collected under 5 categories: study design, intervention, retention, engagement, results. Participatory engagement was mapped using the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation. This review adheres to the PRISMA guidelines, the AMSTAR-2 tool, and has been prospectively registered in PROSPERO (CRD42021257719).
Results: Database searches yielded 5025 articles, with 60 studies of 55 discrete interventions meeting the inclusion criteria. Most of the included interventions were theoretically grounded (65%) and the majority targeted a combination of physical activity and nutrition behaviours (67%) followed by physical activity interventions (11%), smoking interventions (9%), alcohol interventions (7%), nutrition interventions (4%) and smoking and alcohol interventions (2%). Of the included studies 65% utilised a randomised control design, 50% indicated that the intervention was tailored to men, and 53% studies indicated some type of participatory engagement with either men (end-users) or stakeholders. Based on the IAP2, participatory engagement methods utilized within studies included consultation (18%; e.g. interviews), involvement (2%; e.g. co-design), collaboration (27%; e.g. community-based facilitators) and empowerment (5%; e.g. community champions).
Discussion: While 50% of included studies reported that they were tailored to men, only 1 in 3 studies reported going beyond consultation to develop and deliver their health program with the men or relevant stakeholders. Further research is needed to understand how health researchers are engaging with end-users and stakeholders. This will help to develop an understanding of participatory engagement’s contribution to successful implementation and sustainability of interventions.
Impact and application to the field: Findings from this research may be used to inform the use of participatory engagement methods in men’s health promotion to improve engagement, implementation, and scalability of behaviour change interventions.
Conflict of interest statement: My co-authors and I acknowledge that we have no conflict of interest of relevance in submitting this abstract.
