Biomedical Engineer Shruti Turner reflects on the recent CRISH (Co-creating Innovative Solutions in Health) course and explains that engineers could learn a lot from PPI.
Biomedical Engineer Shruti Turner reflects on the recent CRISH (Co-creating Innovative Solutions in Health) course and explains that engineers could learn a lot from PPI.
In conversation with: Thibaut Jombart, Lecturer in Genetic Analysis
Working within: HPRU (Modelling Methodology)
What did you do?
I organised a hackathon (i.e. a coding workshop) called ‘Hackout 3’, which was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU). The event brought together epidemiologists, stakeholders from public health institutions, and members of the public (professional computer programmers) to develop new statistical tools for disease outbreak analysis and response.
In this guest blog, Imperial‘s Cathy Thomas offers advice on how to use social media to engage (and involve!) the public in your research. What have your experiences with using social media for engagement been? Share your experiences in the comments.
Why bother with social media?
There are over one billion active users on Facebook and over 100 million monthly Instagram users – which means that if you’re looking to connect with members of the public, it’s worth considering how social media and other digital tools could support or enhance your engagement activity.
The useful thing about social media is that it’s a discursive medium that encourages sharing and participation, so rather than simply using it as a tool to promote what you’re doing, there will be ways in which it can support two-way engagement.
Public involvement in health and biomedical research is increasingly seen as both desirable and necessary. Desirable because the public’s vast and varied experience can bring important perspectives to research. Necessary because many funders now require it.
That’s why we’ve developed the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Resource Hub – to guide researchers through the process of actively involving patients and members of the public in their research and projects.
In conversation with: Dr Lynne Sykes, Academic Clinical Lecturer Working within: Institute of Reproductive & Developmental Biology
With the help of the NIHR Imperial BRC PPI award, we were able to set up a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) group to help shape our preterm birth research at Imperial. The funding enabled us to invite 10–15 participants to three PPI meetings over a course of 12 months. We now have an established group with around seven core members and one nominated representative. The meetings have been a great way to present, and get feedback, on our current and future research plans.
Readers of this blog will be familiar with Patient and Public Involvement in a research setting. But what does PPI look like within health care services? Here Imperial NHS Trust Lay Partners Mariam Mohammed and John Norton share their perspectives.
The hardest thing about submitting a grant application is often not knowing what the judges are looking for. So, with the call now open for this year’s NIHR Imperial BRC Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) grant scheme funding, but the deadline fast approaching, we thought we’d ask both past winners and members of the judging panel to share their thoughts and insights on what makes a winning patient and public involvement proposal…
In conversation with: Alice Halliday, Research Associate Working within: HPRU in Respiratory Infections
We secured a £1,000 grant from the British Society for Immunology to develop an animated film about latent tuberculosis (TB) infection, which was matched by funding from the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Respiratory Infections. So together with my colleagues, Mica Tolosa-Wright and Ishita Marwah, we developed the script and initial version of the film over a period of about 3 months (Feb–April 2017).
In conversation with: Aime Boakye, Junior Study Coordinator and PPI/E Lead Working within: HPRU in Respiratory Infections
What did you do?
It was a primary aim of our NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Respiratory Infections to seek meaningful patient and public input in our three research areas: Influenza, Tuberculosis and Other Acute Respiratory Infections. Therefore, we appointed two patient representatives (for Flu and Tuberculosis) who were invited to our key strategic and public meetings.
Additional to that, in January 2017, we set up a panel of patients and members of the public who either had experience of respiratory conditions or were interested in our three research areas.