BACKGROUND Patient participation on both the individual and the collective level attracts broad attention from policy makers and researchers. Participation is expected to make decision making more democratic and increase the quality of decisions, but empirical evidence for this remains wanting. OBJECTIVE To study why problems arise in participation practice and to think critically about the c...

We review past studies on how scientists view the public, the goals of communication, the performance and impacts of the media, and the role of the public in policy decision-making. We add to these past findings by analyzing two recent large-scale surveys of scientists in the UK and US. These analyses show that scientists believe the public is uninformed about science and therefore prone to err...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine the levels of participation in social and civic community life in a metropolitan region, and to assess differential levels of participation according to demographic, socioeconomic and health status. To contribute to policy debates on community participation, social capital and health using these empirical data. DESIGN Cross sectional, postal, self completed survey...

Increasing participation in physical activity among people with stroke continues to be a major challenge for healthcare professionals. We administered a survey to a group of 83 adults with unilateral stroke (mean age = 54.2 yr) to determine their perceived barriers to exercise. The five most common barriers in rank order were (1) cost of the program (61%), (2) lack of awareness of a fitness cen...

introduction since the introduction of development to countries after the second world war, this process has been the most significant issue, especially in developing countries. the realization of development demands exploiting the talents, capacities and active participation of people in different stages of development process, so that development and participation are considered to be interwo...