Ten simple rules for a successful global health roundtable
5 affiliations
- 1The Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- 2Charles Perkins Centre, Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- 3Cardiovascular Initiative, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- 4Sydney Institute for Women, Children and their Families, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia
- 5NSW Health, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
Qualitative approaches play a critical role in global health research by capturing the social, political, and contextual dimensions that shape health outcomes. While interviews and focus groups are widely used, these methods are often time‑limited and project‑specific. Global health roundtables offer a complementary approach, providing a flexible and long-term platform for engaging diverse stakeholders—including researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and community representatives—in collective dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaboration. When designed well, roundtables can support co‑production of knowledge, address complex system‑level challenges, and generate insights with relevance beyond a single event. Despite their growing use, practical guidance on how to design and run roundtables specifically for global health remains limited. In this article, we present ten simple rules for organising successful global health roundtables, drawing on existing literature, practice‑based experience, and examples from different geopolitical and health‑system contexts. The rules address key stages of the roundtable lifecycle, including topic selection, objective setting, inclusive participation, management of power dynamics, optimisation of engagement and commitment, ethical recognition of contributions, and translation of dialogue into meaningful outputs and sustained collaboration. Together, these rules provide an accessible framework to support researchers, practitioners, and policy actors in using roundtables as ethical, inclusive, and impactful tools for global health research, policy development, and practice.
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BibTeX
@article{guajardo2026simple,
title = {{Ten simple rules for a successful global health roundtable}},
author = {Maria Gabriela Uribe Guajardo and Amanda Rush and Michelle Cunich and Kathleen Cravero and Carmen Huckel Schneider},
journal = {PLOS Computational Biology},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014916},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014916},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Ten simple rules for a successful global health roundtable
AU - Maria Gabriela Uribe Guajardo
AU - Amanda Rush
AU - Michelle Cunich
AU - Kathleen Cravero
AU - Carmen Huckel Schneider
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
JO - PLOS Computational Biology
DO - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014916
UR - https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014916
AB - Qualitative approaches play a critical role in global health research by capturing the social, political, and contextual dimensions that shape health outcomes. While interviews and focus groups are widely used, these methods are often time‑limited and project‑specific. Global health roundtables offer a complementary approach, providing a flexible and long-term platform for engaging diverse stakeholders—including researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and community representatives—in collective dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaboration. When designed well, roundtables can support co‑production of knowledge, address complex system‑level challenges, and generate insights with relevance beyond a single event. Despite their growing use, practical guidance on how to design and run roundtables specifically for global health remains limited. In this article, we present ten simple rules for organising successful global health roundtables, drawing on existing literature, practice‑based experience, and examples from different geopolitical and health‑system contexts. The rules address key stages of the roundtable lifecycle, including topic selection, objective setting, inclusive participation, management of power dynamics, optimisation of engagement and commitment, ethical recognition of contributions, and translation of dialogue into meaningful outputs and sustained collaboration. Together, these rules provide an accessible framework to support researchers, practitioners, and policy actors in using roundtables as ethical, inclusive, and impactful tools for global health research, policy development, and practice.
SN - 1553-7358
ER -