title: Current practice of public involvement activities in biomedical research and innovation: a systematic qualitative review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A recent report from the British Nuffield Council on Bioethics associated 'emerging biotechnologies' with a threefold challenge: 1) uncertainty about outcomes, 2) diverse public views on the values and implications attached to biotechnologies and 3) the possibility of creating radical changes regarding societal relations and practices. To address these challenges, leading international institutions stress the need for public involvement activities (PIAs). The objective of this study was to assess the state of PIA reports in the field of biomedical research.
  
  
  METHODS
  PIA reports were identified via a systematic literature search. Thematic text analysis was employed for data extraction.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After filtering, 35 public consultation and 11 public participation studies were included in this review. Analysis and synthesis of all 46 PIA studies resulted in 6 distinguishable PIA objectives and 37 corresponding PIA methods. Reports of outcome translation and PIA evaluation were found in 9 and 10 studies respectively (20% and 22%). The paper presents qualitative details.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The state of PIAs on biomedical research and innovation is characterized by a broad range of methods and awkward variation in the wording of objectives. Better comparability of PIAs might improve the translation of PIA findings into further policy development. PIA-specific reporting guidelines would help in this regard. The modest level of translation efforts is another pointer to the "deliberation to policy gap". The results of this review could inform the design of new PIAs and future efforts to improve PIA comparability and outcome translation.
authors.affiliation: Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, CELLS-Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Science, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Street 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lander
authors.affiliation: Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, CELLS-Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Science, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Street 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hainz
authors.affiliation: Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, CELLS-Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Science, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Street 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hirschberg
authors.affiliation: Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, CELLS-Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Science, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Street 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Strech
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics*; D003256:Community Participation; D006801:Humans; D011639:Public Opinion; D036301:Qualitative Research