A Review on the Role of Community Participation in Health Promotion Programs

Participation in health care is a key principle for achieving "health for all". To make better decisions and decrease the management errors, this study was aimed to conduct a narrative review on how public can participate in community-based health promotion programs and extract the lessons learned from these interventions. This was a narrative review study. The research was done exploring databases such as Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar using keywords like community participation, health promotion, methods and lessons learned and their combination in English; same words were searched in Persian at databases such as SID, Magiran and IranMedex. Articles and related reports from 2000 to 2017 were reviewed. The use of communication channels that are diverse and relevant to public’s culture, the direct involvement of communities, the provision of economic incentives, and the creation of a participatory environment are among the most important ways of attracting community participation. Mobilizing local resources, creating a project perspective, following operational norms, core values and values of partnership, committing to transitions to interventions and policies are some of the lessons learned. Mutual trust, respect and freedom to share and communicate, interacting with key stakeholders, transferring executive and management responsibilities to key stakeholders and synchronous trainings and individuals’ participation in monitoring the program, all have a significant impact on increasing community participation in health promotion programs.