TY - JOUR
T1 - Designathons in health research
T2 - a global systematic review
AU - Tieosapjaroen, Warittha
AU - Chen, Elizabeth
AU - Ritchwood, Tiarney
AU - Li, Chunyan
AU - Conklin, Jamie L.
AU - Babatunde, Abdulhammed Opeyemi
AU - Ongkeko, Arturo M.
AU - Nwaozuru, Ucheoma
AU - Tucker, Joseph D.
AU - Castillo Carandang, Nina T.
AU - Ong, Jason J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Dr Beatrice Halpaap and Dr Meredith Labarda, present staff members of Social Innovation in Health Initiative by WHO/TDR, and Dr Noel Shaskan, lead of Solve’s Health Community Lead by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for reviewing the manuscript before submission. The work received support from TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, co-sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and WHO. TDR was able to conduct its work thanks to the commitment and support from a variety of funders. JJO was funded by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Grant (GNT1193955). TDR’s effort was supported by a career development award from the National Institute of Mental Health (K08MH118965). TDR was supported by authors' long-term core contributors from national governments and international institutions, as well as designated funding for specific projects within authors' current priorities. For the full list of TDR donors, please visit TDR’s website (https://www.who.int/tdr/about/funding/en/). TDR received additional funding from Sida, the Swedish International
Funding Information:
JJO was funded by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Grant (GNT1193955). TDR’s effort was supported by a career development award from the National Institute of Mental Health (K08MH118965). TDR was supported by authors' long-term core contributors from national governments and international institutions, as well as designated funding for specific projects within authors' current priorities. For the full list of TDR donors, please visit TDR’s website ( https://www.who.int/tdr/about/funding/en/ ). TDR received additional funding from Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, to support Social Innovation in Health Initiative. AMO was funded by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, Department of Science and Technology (RGAO-2022-0304). JDT was funded by National Health Institute (K24AI143471, R01CA271033, R01AI158826 and UG1HD113156-01). The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.
Publisher Copyright:
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024.
PY - 2024/3/7
Y1 - 2024/3/7
N2 - Introduction A designathon is a three-stage participatory activity informed by design thinking. There is a growing literature on designathons in health. This study synthesised designathons’ effectiveness and implementation-related factors to address health challenges. Methods We searched Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, Scopus and the ClinicalTrials.gov registry for articles containing primary data on designathons for health from their dates of inception to 29 November 2022. We retrieved additional studies from citation searching and a complementary open call. We synthesised data on designathons’ effectiveness (ie, engagement, outputs and implementation), required resources and implementation-related factors (ie, resources, facilitators, barriers, strengths and limitations). We assessed the risk of bias using a checklist adapted from Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal tools. Results In total, 4973 citations were identified, and 42 studies were included. In total, 26 studies (62%) were from high-income countries. The median number of total participants was 49, divided into a median of 8 teams. The duration of the intensive collaboration phase ranged from 3 hours to 7 days. Common evaluation criteria were feasibility, innovation and impact. Idea and prototype outputs included mobile phone applications, educational programmes and medical devices. Interventions developed from a designathon was estimated to be highly cost-effective. The most common facilitators were interdisciplinary participants and high-quality mentorship. The most common barriers were suboptimal execution of the events, difficulties in balancing interdisciplinary participants across teams and limited support for participants along the process. There were limited data on required resources and further implementation of solutions after designathons. Conclusion Given designathons’ adaptability in terms of budget, mode of delivery, type of output and involvement of diverse participants, including end users, designathons can be implemented in a wide range of contexts to address various health issues.
AB - Introduction A designathon is a three-stage participatory activity informed by design thinking. There is a growing literature on designathons in health. This study synthesised designathons’ effectiveness and implementation-related factors to address health challenges. Methods We searched Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, Scopus and the ClinicalTrials.gov registry for articles containing primary data on designathons for health from their dates of inception to 29 November 2022. We retrieved additional studies from citation searching and a complementary open call. We synthesised data on designathons’ effectiveness (ie, engagement, outputs and implementation), required resources and implementation-related factors (ie, resources, facilitators, barriers, strengths and limitations). We assessed the risk of bias using a checklist adapted from Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal tools. Results In total, 4973 citations were identified, and 42 studies were included. In total, 26 studies (62%) were from high-income countries. The median number of total participants was 49, divided into a median of 8 teams. The duration of the intensive collaboration phase ranged from 3 hours to 7 days. Common evaluation criteria were feasibility, innovation and impact. Idea and prototype outputs included mobile phone applications, educational programmes and medical devices. Interventions developed from a designathon was estimated to be highly cost-effective. The most common facilitators were interdisciplinary participants and high-quality mentorship. The most common barriers were suboptimal execution of the events, difficulties in balancing interdisciplinary participants across teams and limited support for participants along the process. There were limited data on required resources and further implementation of solutions after designathons. Conclusion Given designathons’ adaptability in terms of budget, mode of delivery, type of output and involvement of diverse participants, including end users, designathons can be implemented in a wide range of contexts to address various health issues.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85187531737
U2 - 10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013961
DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013961
M3 - Article
C2 - 38453248
AN - SCOPUS:85187531737
SN - 2059-7908
VL - 9
JO - BMJ Global Health
JF - BMJ Global Health
IS - 3
M1 - e013961
ER -
