Engaging communities in health research priority-setting is a key means of setting research topics and questions of relevance and benefit to them. But communities, especially those considered disadvantaged and marginalised, rarely have a say in the agendas and priorities of the very health research projects that aim to help them.

How can researchers and communities share power and ownership when setting priorities for health research projects? An “ethical toolkit” is being developed to help researchers and their partners design inclusive priority-setting processes for health research projects. The toolkit places community engagement and power-sharing at the heart of health research priority-setting. It is a reflective project planning aid for use before priority-setting is undertaken for a health research project. It consists of 3 worksheets and a companion document.

In today’s workshop, the ethical toolkit will be introduced to workshop participants and they will be able to give comments and feedback. Then workshop participants will have the opportunity to apply the toolkit to their current/upcoming health research projects in small groups. (The toolkit is currently not publicly available but will be provided to participants at
the workshop.)

About the speaker

Dr Bridget Pratt is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Health Equity at the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Her work focuses on the ethics of global health research and health systems research, with a focus on social and global justice. She develops ethical guidance
for global health research in relation to multiple areas: priority-setting, governance, capacity development, community engagement, provision of ancillary care, research translation, benefit-sharing, and data sharing.