Mapping the Co-Creation Landscape and Exposing the Methodological Gap between Researchers and Practitioners: A Health CASCADE Systematic Methods Overview (Preprint)

Abstract

Co-creation has emerged as a strategy for cultivating collaboration and driving innovation across diverse fields, proving particularly promising in addressing complex and wicked problems in public health. There is a growing recognition of co-creation as a valuable methodology, yet, to date there is no standardized methodology or recommendations for methods appropriate for use in co-creation. While some studies have examined specific methods, a comprehensive overview of co-creation methods is still lacking, hindering conceptual clarity and collective understanding of methods appropriate for diverse contexts and research objectives.

To enhance transparency and understanding about how to co-create, this study aimed to comprehensively and systematically assess methods used in co-creation.

To ensure a thorough approach, the Systematic Methods Overview approach was applied. This was completed in two parallel processes, one within the Health CASCADE Co-Creation Database, and one within grey literature. To filter out irrelevant information, an artificial intelligence-assisted recursive search strategy and a two-step screening process were applied. Method names were extracted from the included literature and combined for analysis. We conducted textual analysis, comparative analysis, and bibliometric analyses to assess the content and relationship between the extracted methods and the methodological underpinnings of the included sources.

We examined a total of 2627 academic articles and grey literature sources. The literature primarily represented fields such as health sciences, medical research, and health services research, and the dominant research methodologies were the co-approaches (co-creation, co-design, co-production), the participatory research methodologies, and public and patient involvement. We extracted and analyzed 956 co-creation methods, with only 10.2% (97/956) of the methods overlapping between those found in academic literature and grey literature. The most frequent methods in academic literature were surveys, focus group, photo voice, and group discussion, while in grey literature they were world café, focus group, role playing, and persona. Among the methods extracted from academic literature, 91.3% (230/252) were found to co-occur, with a predominant combination of multiple qualitative methods.

This study produced a high-quality systematic inventory of co-creation methods. Our analysis of the sourced methods reveals a methodological gap between researchers and practitioners and offers insights into the relative prevalence of individual methods, and how they are combined. This study initiates the process of bridging this methodological gap by fostering an increased understanding and recognition of co-creation methods and their relative presence in both research and practice. Bridging this gap is crucial for advancing co-creation as a reliable methodological approach. This systematic exploration of knowledge of the various methods applied in co-creation can facilitate individuals embarking on a co-creation process, or similar participatory methodologies, by illuminating the diverse landscape of methods used in co-creation.