By using narrative analysis, we were able to capture the meaning that the community participation process had for this group of men and understand how it contributed to change and improvement in El Triunfo.
Our findings imply the need to undertake a comprehensive approach to assessment, including evaluating hidden costs such as training of health care professionals and consumers, and time required for the participation process as well as that allocated for meetings or presentations.
This paper shows outcomes from deploying a community participation process to design healthcare for remote communities.
These methods can be used as evaluation tools in the planning process, to analyze and visualize different possible scenarios for the participation process, or to define areas that are most important for measures to preserve or enhance biodiversity.
For this to happen, more structured support for the participation process in the form of clear policies, funding and capacity building is needed.
Based on these listed aims of participation, we argue that an active multi-lateral participation process should be a criterion for sustainable decision making.
Public participation is one of the most important tasks for policy making processes, and public authorities are lacking ideas on designing public participation processes facilitating active citizen participation.
