Co-production as an Emerging Methodology for Developing School-Based Health Interventions with Students Aged 11–16: Systematic Review of Intervention Types, Theories and Processes and Thematic Synthesis of Stakeholders’ Experiences

Abstract

Co-production affords an intervention’s target population the opportunity to participate in intervention theory decision-making during the development process. This addresses the over-reliance on developing interventions through academic theories which can be devoid of contextual understanding and result in challenges to implementing school-based health programmes. There is an emergent empirical literature on co-producing school-based health interventions, but an understanding of appropriate theoretical types and processes and stakeholders’ experiences is lacking. Through the conduct of a systematic review, this study seeks to understand the types and underlying theories and processes for co-production in school-based health interventions with students aged 11–16. A thematic synthesis explored stakeholders’ experiences of the different types of co-production. A systematic search of five electronic bibliographic databases, citation tracking of included studies, and consultation with an expert international panel were employed. Of 27,433 unique papers, 30 papers representing 22 studies were retained to describe types, and 23 papers of 18 studies used to synthesise stakeholders’ experiences. Three types were identified: external, individual-level, and system-level capacity-building. Whilst this review showed variability in co-production types, stakeholders involved and processes, shared functions were identified. Students’, school staff, facilitators’ and researchers’ experiences in terms of acceptability, feasibility and undertaking decision-making are discussed. Recommendations for conceptualising and reporting co-production and process evaluations of co-produced school-based health interventions are highlighted.

Co-Creation Approach with Action-Oriented Research Methods to Strengthen “Krachtvoer”; A School-Based Programme to Enhance Healthy Nutrition in Adolescents

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The involvement matrix as a framework for involving youth with severe communication disabilities in developing health education materials

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“…The research project was underpinned by the paradigm of participatory research through involvement of youth who use AAC. Within discourses on participatory research, a broad spectrum of terminology is used to describe various types of involvement in research, for example, coproduction 42 and codesign 43 . In the current study, public and patient involvement is defined as ‘research that is carried out with those for whom research is intended and not merely on or for them’ 4 .…”

“…The Involvement Matrix 40 is one such tool that can help to facilitate discussion about degrees of involvement and provide clarity about roles and expectations. There has been a call from researchers to share examples and lessons learned from the application of tools that involve youth with disabilities in health research 42,43 . Therefore, the aim of this paper is to share one example by describing how the Involvement Matrix 40 was applied in our project as a tool to involve youth who use AAC, in health research.…”

Development of an educational package for the universal human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme: a co-production study with young people and key informants

“…Despite the increased popularity of using co-production methodologies to develop interventions, the effectiveness on long-term changes in population health behaviours are currently uncertain [ 26 ]. To address this research gap, we plan a future implementation study to further test the mechanisms of delivery (e.g.…”