Power to the people: To what extent has public involvement in applied health research achieved this? (UK)

Power to the people: To what extent has public involvement in applied health research achieved this? | Research Involvement and Engagement | Full Text

  The public involved in research are not always equal partners. The scientific research community still has the loudest voice and patients and the public do not always feel sufficiently empowered to challenge it.

  There is also concern that the public representatives on funding panels are drawn from a small pool of people (often with a health or research background) and are not very representative of the general population [33]. There is evidence that as they become familiar with the working practices and conduct of panels and receive training they become ‘professionalised’ and adopt a professional rather than a lay discourse [53]. Whilst this may serve to enhance their credibility and influence on scientific committees, it inevitably involves a loss of ‘freshness’ and an increase in their alignment to the researcher view. A study of this process among people with experience of cancer who were involved with research panels noted that there were “no examples of individuals criticizing or challenging the dominant scientific model” [53] p.615.