Review of the Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement in Health and Medical Research engagement opportunity

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Consumers Health Forum of Australia Ltd (CHF) are collaborating to review the 2016 Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement in Health and Medical Research (the Statement).

The Statement aims to support consumer and community involvement across all types and levels of health and medical research. It articulates the importance and benefits of consumer and community involvement in research, and discusses a series of implementation issues.

Since its publication in 2016, a variety of material addressing implementation of consumer and community involvement in research has been developed. With the increasing availability of such material, it is proposed to remove implementation-focussed information from a revised Statement. A review of the Statement will maintain its relevance and currency, and reframe it as a high-level, overarching statement, focusing on principles, values, and roles and responsibilities of those involved.

NHMRC has developed a position paper with advice from CHF and the Consumer Statement Advisory Committee (CSAC) to guide your input on what should be included in the revised Statement. The position paper provides examples of information which could be included in the revised Statement, and poses some discussion questions. It also provides further information on the intentions and scope of the review. The position paper is available in the ‘Related’ section below.

NHMRC wants to encourage you to share your views by completing the online survey linked below. The questions are similar to the discussion questions in the position paper, but have been modified where necessary so they are more suited to an online survey. If you would like to prepare your responses offline and enter them later, you may download a Word version of the questions as they appear in the survey in the ‘Related’ section below.

There will also be opportunities to attend online or in-person workshops which will run during March and April 2024. Attendees will be invited to discuss the questions posed in the position paper in an open forum. A link to the workshop schedule is available here: Australian Research Health Alliance (AHRA) workshops.

Click this link to visit the NHMRC website to complete the survey and learn more about this consultation: Review of the 2016 Statement on Consumer and Community Involvement in Health and Medical Research – NHMRC consultation hub – Citizen Space