What difference will my participation make?
Your participation will help to make research more relevant and more effective.
The most important outcome of your participation in research is that you will be helping generate new knowledge about preventing illness and treating disease, thereby, helping increase the health and wellbeing of the population.
Citizen, consumer and patient participation in research also has lots of other good outcomes:
- It helps make sure that research addresses the right question
- It, therefore, helps ensure that the resources available for research are used efficiently on the right questions and not wasted
- It can make certain that research is ethical and acceptable to research participants
- This in its turn can improve the number of people willing to participate in the research, making research better and faster
- It helps make sure that the findings are not ignored but are used to inform future decisions
- It can make the participant more knowledgeable about what makes good scientific evidence and lead them to make better decisions for themselves and their family
- It is interesting and fun!
Page last edited: 30 January 2011
