Developing and Validating Quantitative Measures to Assess Community Engagement in Research: Addressing the Measurement Challenge, United States, 2017-2020

Community-engaged research is an umbrella term for forms of research that have community and stakeholder engagement as a core principle, for example, patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), participatory action research, and community-based participatory research. However, the implementation and category of community engagement can vary across a spectrum from minimal engagement to fully collaborative engagement. A major methodological gap is the assessment of stakeholder engagement from a stakeholder perspective. Evaluation of the impact of stakeholder engagement on research development, implementation, and outcomes requires the development and validation of tools that assess engagement. This study's objective was to develop and validate comprehensive and condensed versions of a survey instrument that will be completed by stakeholders and used to assess engagement in research studies from a stakeholder perspective.