The use of participatory research in risk assessments: a scoping review

Risk assessment is widely used in public health to support decision-making in a population context. However, participatory research is not frequently applied to this domain. Integrating participatory approaches to risk assessment may better capture the risk heterogeneity and, through public involvement at the individual and community level, improve our understanding of the phenomenon being assessed, from a comprehensive 'One Health' perspective. It would also improve collective ability to provide more adapted and accepted risk management advice, collaboration with the communities involved, and ultimately, the adherence of community members to risk management measures. There is a need synthesize the literature to identify how participatory methods have been used for risk assessments. Therefore, the objectives of this scoping review are to: (i) explore how participatory research methods have been used for building risk assessments, and (ii) generate insights on how to better integrate these methods in risk assessment. We aim at providing answers to the following research questions: (i) How have participatory methods been broadly applied in risk assessments? (ii) How are different types of participatory approaches adapted to different types of risks in a risk assessment? (iii) How do they compare to each other and to a ‘traditional’ risk assessment (i.e. not applying participatory approaches), for the same risk? Information sources will include Scopus and Medline. A comprehensive search strategy was developed with guidance from a librarian. Documents will be eligible for inclusion if they meet the following criteria: document is published in a peer-reviewed journal as a research paper; the document focuses on the concept of risk assessment and uses a participatory research approach; and the document is in English, French, or Spanish. Included documents will be reviewed, data will be charted and narratively described.