HEALTH RESEARCH HUB

The home for practical, high-quality tools and real-life examples to guide consumer and community involvement in health and medical research and healthcare improvement. Whether you are a researcher, healthcare professional or consumer/community member, this hub supports meaningful, effective, and impactful partnerships.

Working in partnership with the Australian Health Research Alliance (AHRA), the creation and management of the Health Research Hub is led by Monash Partners and the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, Monash University. This work is part of the Consumer and Community Involvement Implementation Research for Impact (CCIRI) project funded by the Medical Research Future Fund. For more information and other outputs from this project, click here.

Please note this is a pilot site undergoing review and will be launched in the coming months in 2025.

Visit our resources page to learn more on how to embed consumer and community involvement in your research and healthcare improvement projects.

Consumer and community involvement is the active partnership with patients, carers, and members of the public to shape health research and healthcare delivery. Rather than being subjects of research or passive recipients of care, consumers are valued for their lived experience – helping to set priorities, design studies, communicate findings, and ensure that healthcare solutions reflect real-world needs. These collaborations lead to more relevant, impactful, and equitable outcomes for the communities research and healthcare aim to serve.

We acknowledge that the language used for consumer and community involvement throughout Australia and globally is inconsistent. The term consumer ‘involvement’ can be used interchangeably with other terms like ‘consultation’, ‘participation’, ‘engagement’, ‘partnership’, ‘co-production’ and ‘collaboration’. A useful way to think of consumer involvement is decision making with or by consumers, rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.

For a list of definitions used throughout the Health Research Hub, click here.

Consumer and community involvement brings a unique perspective to all areas of research and healthcare improvement including planning, policy, funding, evaluation and reporting. Extensive research in Australia and internationally provides compelling evidence that the involvement of consumers in health research confers many benefits. 

These benefits are recognised across the world by governments, research bodies and health organisations that are fostering involvement of consumers through legislation, policies and financial investment. 

Consumer Involvement:

• Increases the relevance and responsiveness of research to health needs.
• Improves the quality of research and its impact on health outcomes.
• Strengthens the effective translation of research into policy and practice.
• Builds public confidence in health and medical research.
• Increases opportunities for research funding.

As the funders and beneficiaries of our healthcare system and health and medical research, consumers have an inherent right to be involved in decisions about the priorities and problems we are trying to solve how we implement them and their impact. They should be encouraged, supported and given opportunities to do so.

Consumers and community members bring expertise in their health condition and experience of the health system to improve the quality, relevance and direction of health research. They also provide diverse perspectives on culture, language, sex and gender and remind us of why the research project is important. The benefits of consumer and community involvement include making sure the project is responding to the needs and priorities of the community. Involving consumers at the outset provides an opportunity to think about the project from a new angle and results in a more relevant research question. Consumer and community involvement builds trust and public confidence in research and assists with the translation of research findings into improved healthcare.

Hear what consumers, researchers and health professionals have to say about consumer and community involvement.