The National Health and Medical Research Council’s Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement in Health and Medical Research (2016):
Consumers, community members, researchers and research organisations working in partnerships, to improve the health and well-being of all Australians through health and medical research.
Health Translation Queensland recognises consumer and community involvement as an area that it can assist across our partnership. Our vision for consumer and community involvement is for researchers to involve consumers in decisions throughout the process: from research priority setting, to project ideation and design, to project delivery and evaluation.
The activities we offer are informed by a focused consumer engagement audit and needs analysis across our partnership, which involved background research and reading, one-on-one interviews and surveys with clinicians, researchers and consumers active in consumer and community involvement.
Our CCI program currently includes:
Other initiatives we are exploring for our future offering include:
Health Translation Queensland recognises that many researchers would like to engage with consumers and community but they are not sure how and where to start. Health Translation Queensland has established a consumer and community engagement advisory service to provide initial advice to researchers and clinician-researchers on engaging with consumers.
Some ways to involve health consumers include:
To seek advice on engaging consumers and community in your project, contact communications@healthtranslationqld.org.au.
Stakeholders identified that a barrier to consumer and community involvement in the early stages of research project planning and design is the absence of funding to pay consumers for their time. So in 2021, Health Translation Queensland piloted a microgrant program to support consumer and community involvement in research. After the success of the pilot, the microgrants program was launched for the Health Translation Queensland partnership.
The Health Translation Queensland Consumer and Community Involvement (CCI) microgrant program is designed to support research projects to fund consumer involvement in project design and research priority setting.
If you are from a Health Translation Queensland partner organisation, you are eligible to apply. Contact communications@healthtranslationqld.org.au for the EOI form.
*Please note, micro grant applications take approximately 2-4 weeks to assess once submitted. Please be mindful of this timeframe in relation to your project deadlines.
Health Translation Queensland is working with various suppliers including Health Consumers Queensland to deliver free Consumer Engagement Training for Researchers. In 2021, the training program included:
Health Consumers Queensland: An Introduction to Involving Consumers in Research
Health Consumers Queensland: Involving Consumers in your Research: Master Class
The 2022 Consumer and Community Involvement Training offering is being developed, join our mailing list to stay in touch.
In our consumer and community involvement audit and needs analysis, we identified that there is no shortage of tools and resources to support consumer and community involvement. Some of those resources are listed in our CCI resources section.
Receive our e-news
Connect with us
Quicklinks
Health Translation Queensland acknowledges the Traditional Owners and their custodianship of the lands on which we live, work, and play. We pay our respects to their Ancestors and their descendants, who continue cultural and spiritual connections to Country. We recognise their valuable contributions to Australian and global society.
