Each month in our Healthwatch Essex Journal Club, one of our Research Ambassadors shares an article that they are interested in – giving our network a chance to read, reflect, and discuss together in our WhatsApp community. It’s a space for learning, questioning, and exploring research in an informal and supportive way.
In this month’s Journal Club, Research Ambassador Sangeeta shared an article which explored the development of inclusive approaches to guide researchers on how to involve people from different ethnicities in health research. The article discusses The Checklist for Inclusive Community Involvement in Health Research (CHICO). This checklist was co-produced by researchers and three Bristol-based Community Organisations. It outlines 3 stages: (1) building relationships, (2) reciprocal relationships and (3) practicalities, which can support researchers when involving community groups in their research.
Here are the article details for anyone that is interested in this topic:
Authors: Jameson, C., Haq, Z., Musse, S., Kosar, Z., Watson, G., & Wylde, V. (2023).
Title: Inclusive Approaches to Involvement of Community Groups in Health Research: The Co-produced CHICO Guidance.
Article Link: Click here to download a PDF.
This was an insightful article which encouraged many of us researchers to reflect on our own practices and look at how we can adopt these principles when involving community groups in our research. As always, our ambassador reflections demonstrate the value of coming together to explore different topics from a range of perspectives and experiences:
“It is my turn to send a journal article for this month. I’ve chosen an article which sets out a co-produced guidance/checklist on how to involve community groups in research particularly those communities who are underrepresented in health research.
Whilst the checklist covers areas that we are all implementing as researchers, for me it was a really helpful reminder of those areas that I could improve on. For example, keeping the groups updated on the development of the projects whether that’s six months or one year down the line” – Sangeeta.
“My reflection on Stage 1- I hadn’t heard the term ‘parachute’ approach before, but it really spoke to what you see happen a lot in research where individuals only attend group settings to invite people to take part in their research, with no long-standing relationships built from this. As the article goes onto share, these repeat visits and communication with individuals are vital to ensure that people feel comfortable sharing. I did sit back and think here I wonder what else needs to be done to ensure that funding/time can be put in place for researchers across different services to be able to engage in these relationships longer term (which was then mentioned in the last sentence of the article too)”. – Beth
“Thanks Sangeeta for the excellent article. I definitely will be referring to the CHICO framework when working in future studies. I really liked the simplicity of the final graphic and the importance of food. Too often we forget the social aspects of food and the comfort in sharing a meal together. Reciprocal relationships 100%
Too often we don’t factor in the time to visit multiple times to provide updates. I also liked that the Malcolm X Elders and Dhek Bhal opted for transport costs covered or group activities to be paid for, as opposed to individuals receiving vouchers or reimbursement for taking part. Covering costs of group activities is a great way of thanking the members of the community groups and ensuring they can continue to do things together.
This article made me also reflect and revisit research basics- do we always ensure that the study aims are of relevance to the people we intend to co-produce and engage with?” – Lorna.
“Thanks so much for your comments Lorna. Further to working with a community group on a project, I am now more focused on building a long-term working relationship with the group by finding speakers for them. I thought the article is great to have as a guidance tool” – Sangeeta.
“Thank you for sharing this article Sangeeta. I don’t know much about PPIE so I found this really interesting. There were a lot of similar themes in the article about the adapted community health intervention.
I think that medical or health research is accorded so much weight and value in society and researchers are by proxy figures of authority and power. It seems natural marginalised groups would be mistrustful of authority figures and I imagine that the unequal power dynamic that exists between researcher and participant is even more exaggerated when participants are from underrepresented groups. The onus is therefore on researchers to establish a relationship with these groups and not the other way round. The most important idea to me reading this checklist is that of reciprocity- a cornerstone of all healthy, functional relationships and a quality that may need particular attention and nurturing in situations where one party is not or has not historically been treated with mutual respect.
I would be interested to learn more about how sustained relationships between researchers and community groups are developed and to read about examples of where this has been achieved and what this looks like in practice”. – Hattie.
“Like others mentioned, I thought the illustration was a great was to summarise their main points…. The plain language summary was also a great inclusion. Sangeeta, as you mentioned this is a helpful reminder of the importance of communities being able to continue their usual group activities, and I think this is something I’d like to take forward in future projects – I’ve reached out to groups in the past who have said that they aren’t able to have external people come along to the group because they don’t want to take time away from the group’s usual activities, and this article has given some great practical ideas for how to ensure that groups are able to have their usual sessions and also get involved in engagement activities”. – Joe.
This month’s article facilitated insightful and supportive conversations and reflections from our research ambassadors. There were a lot of reflective questions asked, and thoughts about how we can adopt some of these principles in our own practice. It really demonstrates what our journal club is all about – sharing knowledge, personal experience, and asking questions to build confidence in reading and exploring research, raise awareness and support one another. Sangeeta’s article this month captured another vital aspect of our journal club, giving ambassadors the opportunity to critically reflect on their own practice and discuss how to implement new ways of researching!
Our Journal Club is open to all our Research Ambassadors, if you would like to become a Research Ambassador or are looking for more information on research, please contact our Research Manager Dr Kate Mahoney at [email protected]
We are looking forward to next month’s article, which will be shared by Research Manager Dr Kate Mahoney.