Keywords
research dissemination, local communities, global health, low- and middle-income countries, scoping review, community engagement, research ethics, research integrity
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Luoga P, Mwaisengela SM, Adam J et al. Dissemination of health research findings to local communities in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. F1000Research 2026, 15:1127 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.180439.1)
NOTE: If applicable, it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
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Study Protocol
Dissemination of health research findings to local communities in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol
[version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]
PUBLISHED 10 Jul 2026
OPEN PEER REVIEW
REVIEWER STATUS
This article is included in the Global Public Health gateway.
Abstract
Corresponding author:
Kristien Verdonck
Competing interests:
No competing interests were disclosed.
Grant information:
This work received partial support from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, including library services (expertise and access to databases and platforms, including Covidence) and contributions from the Datahub (salary support and publication costs). No specific grant was obtained for this review.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Copyright:
© 2026 Luoga P et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
How to cite: Luoga P, Mwaisengela SM, Adam J et al. Dissemination of health research findings to local communities in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. F1000Research 2026, 15:1127 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.180439.1)
First published: 10 Jul 2026, 15:1127 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.180439.1)
Latest published: 10 Jul 2026, 15:1127 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.180439.1)
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
1. Introduction
Dissemination of research findings to local communities is an important component of responsible and high-quality research. In health research conducted in low- and middle-income countries, expectations to share findings with study participants and local stakeholders are increasingly explicit and formalised. These expectations are articulated by a range of actors, including researchers (e.g. the BRIDGE guidelines for good epidemiological practice1), research ethics bodies (e.g. the CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines for Health-related Research Involving Humans2), and research funders and institutions (e.g. Wellcome and the European Union3–5). Illustrative excerpts from these sources are presented in Annex 1.
Despite these expectations, observations from practice suggest that research findings are not always shared with the communities who take part in or are affected by the research.6 This raises questions about accountability and the role of research in supporting local priorities and decision-making. It also raises concerns about how knowledge from local communities is interpreted, credited, and represented in research outputs. Suboptimal dissemination may undermine trust in research, contribute to misrepresentation of local knowledge, reduce local ownership of research findings, and result in missed opportunities for their use in policy and practice.7
Preliminary observations from Tanzania and other low- and middle-income countries suggest multiple possible explanations for these gaps, including limited resources for dissemination, lack of institutional policies, limited researcher capacity, and low prioritisation of dissemination activities.6,8 In addition, researchers may not always recognise the relevance of dissemination or may be uncertain about how to integrate it into the research process, particularly when they are more distant from the settings in which the research takes place. These observations also point to the role of how research is organised and funded, including the involvement of external collaborators. Together, they highlight a range of factors and mechanisms that may shape dissemination practices in different contexts.
Existing reviews have examined the dissemination and use of research findings, and identified common practices and challenges.8,9 However, these reviews either do not focus specifically on low- and middle-income countries or do not examine dissemination practices in relation to existing guidance or expectations. This points to the need for a more context-sensitive understanding of how dissemination is approached in different settings.
This review aims to map and analyse studies that examine dissemination practices in health research conducted in low- and middle-income countries, with particular attention to reasons for dissemination, the forms of dissemination, and the factors and mechanisms that shape whether and how it occurs.
2. Protocol
2.1 Review approach
This study will use a scoping review approach to map the existing evidence on the dissemination of research findings to local communities in low- and middle-income countries. We use a scoping approach because it allows for a structured yet flexible exploration of a broad and heterogeneous body of literature.10
This protocol is structured in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P)11 and incorporates terminology and methodological elements appropriate for scoping reviews as outlined in the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR).12
2.2 Review question and objectives
The review is guided by the following question:
How, why, and under what conditions are research findings disseminated, or not disseminated, to local communities in health research conducted in low- and middle-income countries?
To address this question, the review will:
2.3 Eligibility criteria
We used the population-concept-context framework to define the eligibility criteria and guide the identification of relevant records ( Table 1).13
Table 1. Population-concept-context framework.
Additional criteria
Study type: We will include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies, as well as relevant policy documents, reports, and guidelines that address dissemination practices.
Time frame: We will include studies published from 2016 onwards, following the release of the CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines, which emphasise the dissemination of research findings to study participants and the communities they represent.2
Language: We will not restrict the search by language and will include studies where translation is feasible.
Inclusion criteria
We will include studies that:
- Examine the dissemination of research findings to local communities
- Concern health-related research conducted in low- and middle-income countries
- Address dissemination practices as a primary focus
- Use qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approaches, or are presented as policy documents, reports, or guidelines
- Were published from 2016 onwards
Exclusion criteria
We will exclude studies that:
- Focus exclusively on dissemination to academic, clinical, or high-level policy audiences without involvement of local communities
- Do not examine dissemination of research findings as a primary focus (e.g. studies on general community engagement without a dissemination component, or where dissemination is part of an intervention rather than a research practice)
- Are review articles, opinion pieces, editorials, or commentaries without substantive analysis
- Are available only as abstracts without accessible full text
- Cannot be retrieved despite reasonable efforts
2.4 Information sources
We will search the following sources: PubMed, Web of Science, and the EBSCO Discovery Service platform, accessed through the library of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium (ITM). In addition, relevant policy documents, reports, and guidelines related to dissemination will be identified through targeted searches of organisational websites (e.g. international organisations such as the World Health Organization, research funders, non-governmental organisations, and, where relevant, ministries of health). Reference lists of included records will be examined to identify additional relevant sources.
2.5 Search strategy
The search strategy combines terms related to dissemination (e.g. research dissemination, research communication, knowledge translation), local communities (e.g. community members, study participants), and low- and middle-income country settings. Both keywords and controlled vocabulary (e.g. MeSH terms in PubMed) will be used. The search is designed to provide a structured and transparent overview of the field rather than to be exhaustive. A preliminary search strategy for PubMed has been developed in consultation with a research librarian and is provided in Annex 2. This strategy will be refined and adapted for other databases during the review process.
2.6 Selection of sources of evidence
We will import all records retrieved through the searches into Covidence and use this platform to identify and remove duplicates, organise screening, and manage study selection. All members of the review team will participate in screening. Each record will be assessed by two reviewers against the eligibility criteria, first at the title and abstract stage. Records considered potentially relevant will be assessed in full text by two reviewers. Covidence provides links to full texts that are freely available online or accessible through the ITM library. Where full texts are not accessible through these routes, we will contact the ITM librarian to assess whether they can be obtained. Records will proceed once two reviewers have voted. Disagreements will be resolved through discussion and, where needed, with input from a third reviewer. We will document the selection process using a PRISMA flow diagram.12
2.7 Data charting
We will develop a data charting form in Covidence to support a structured approach to data extraction. The form will be piloted on a small number of included studies and refined iteratively as needed. One reviewer will extract data, and a second reviewer will check the extracted data for accuracy and completeness. Regular discussions within the review team will support a shared understanding of the data charting process and ensure consistency in how data are interpreted and recorded. Data will be extracted in a way that allows both structured description and qualitative analysis, including key study characteristics and information relevant to the review objectives.
2.8 Data items
We will extract data on key study characteristics, including authors, affiliations, year of publication, country or region of study, and study design. We will also capture characteristics of the research context, including the actors involved in dissemination (e.g. researchers, research teams, institutions, and community actors such as study participants, patient organisations, or people living in the study area), the setting (e.g. community or hospital-based), and the area of health research.
In addition, we will extract data relevant to the review objectives, focusing on three main domains:
1. Reasons reported for disseminating or not disseminating research findings to local communities, including stated motivations, justifications, or underlying principles.
2. How dissemination is carried out, including the forms, channels, and approaches used. This includes how communities shape and respond to dissemination activities and how their contributions are integrated into the broader research process.
3. Factors and mechanisms that shape dissemination practices, including situations where dissemination is limited or does not take place.
These domains are informed by existing guidance on dissemination from different perspectives, including research practice (e.g. BRIDGE guidelines1), research ethics (e.g. CIOMS guidelines2), and research funding.3–5 They will be applied flexibly, allowing additional themes to emerge from the included studies.
2.9 Critical appraisal
In line with the scoping review approach, we will not conduct a formal assessment of risk of bias. However, we will describe key methodological characteristics of included studies.
2.10 Synthesis of results
Findings will be presented in a narrative format, supported by tables and figures where appropriate. The sequence will reflect the review process. We will first show how records were identified and selected, followed by a descriptive overview of the included records based on the extracted study characteristics.
The analysis will then focus on three thematic domains: reasons for dissemination, forms of dissemination, and factors and mechanisms that shape dissemination practices. The three domains provide the main analytical structure. Existing guidance on dissemination, including CIOMS, BRIDGE, and other sources illustrated in Annex 1, will serve as an additional point of reference, while allowing themes, domains, or interactions to emerge. Particular attention will be paid to how dissemination is conceptualised as a one-way or two-way process, including the roles of different actors and how communities contribute to and shape dissemination. A combination of deductive and inductive approaches will be used. The analysis draws on principles of qualitative evidence synthesis to support the identification and interpretation of themes across studies, including how findings relate to each other within and across domains.14
3. Dissemination
The protocol will be registered and published in an open-access format. The completed review will also be made available as an open-access publication. Where relevant, materials developed during the review process (e.g. search strategies, extracted data, and bibliographic records) will be made available to support transparency and reuse.
Findings will be presented at conferences where researchers working in low- and middle-income countries gather (e.g. conferences focused on tropical medicine or global public health). We will also proactively share the results with stakeholders who can influence or improve dissemination practices, including authors of good practice guidelines, research ethics committees, and research funders within the networks of the review team.
This review does not engage directly with local communities, as it examines dissemination as a feature of research practice. The main target audiences are therefore researchers and other stakeholders who can influence whether and how research findings are shared with local communities.
4. Study status
At the time this protocol is made publicly available, it has been developed and discussed within the review team. Preliminary searches have been conducted to assess the availability of relevant literature and to confirm that no similar review has been completed. The formal search and study selection have not yet started.
5. Discussion
This scoping review focuses on studies that examine dissemination practices in health research conducted in low- and middle-income countries. It addresses how and why research findings are, or are not, shared with local communities, and under what conditions this takes place. As a scoping review, this study will not assess the effectiveness of dissemination strategies.
By mapping how dissemination is described and analysed in the literature, this review aims to clarify how current practices relate to expectations set out in existing guidance from research, ethics, and funding perspectives. While such guidance emphasises the importance of sharing research findings with participants and communities, less is known about how this is carried out in practice and across diverse settings.
The review is expected to identify factors and mechanisms that shape whether and how dissemination takes place. These insights may help inform more structured and context-aware approaches to dissemination and support researchers, research ethics committees, and funders in strengthening dissemination practices.
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how to cite this article
Luoga P, Mwaisengela SM, Adam J et al. Dissemination of health research findings to local communities in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. F1000Research 2026, 15:1127 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.180439.1)
NOTE: If applicable, it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
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