Box 1.

Engagement audience definitions: Definitions as provided in Gene Drives on the Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values, published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine¹³

1. Communities: Groups of people who live within the geographical location or biologically relevant proximity to a potential site where research is taking place or where field releases may take place such that they have tangible and immediate interests in the research project. Communities are included within the broader category of “stakeholders.” 2. Stakeholders: Organizations, groups, or persons with professional or personal interests sufficient to justify engagement, but who may, or may not, have geographic proximity to potential intervention sites for the research project. 3. Publics: Groups who lack the direct connection to a project that stakeholders and communities have but nonetheless have interests, concerns, hopes, fears, and values that can contribute and influence decision-making about the research and possible use of the vector control intervention.