Consumer and Community Involvement

Across our School, we lead a large body of work embedding consumer and community involvement in research, ensuring that studies are shaped by diverse perspectives, address real-world needs and enhance the quality and impact of our research.

We’re advancing both knowledge and capacity for researchers to partner meaningfully and effectively with health consumers through innovative approaches such as community co-design and living laboratories.

Our focus areas

Research units

Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre

The ANZIC-RC Consumer and Community Connection Committee (CONNECT) is a member registry of keen, interested patients, family members or caregivers with lived experience of intensive care who wish to contribute to any aspects of our research activities.

Director

Professor (DJ) Jamie Cooper AO

Centre of Cardiovascular Research and Education in Therapeutics

We proudly partner with cardiac event survivors who contribute to our cardiac rehabilitation research, from helping us set research priorities through to co-authoring journal papers.

Co-Directors

Professor Chris Reid
Professor Dion Stub

Clinical Outcomes Data Reporting and Research

Patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMS) report patient's perspective on their health, including their quality of life, symptoms, daily functioning, and overall health. We conduct research to establish and implement best-practice reporting of PROMS by clinical quality registries.

Head of Unit

Professor Susannah Ahearn

Global and Women’s Health

We actively encourage and participate in research partnerships with non-academic community groups around our region, to understand the effects of gender on health, and to reduce health inequalities experienced by women and girls.

Head of Unit

Professor Jane Fisher AO

Health and Social Care

We’ve embedded a culturally sensitive, co-design approach in all our work, ensuring the needs and perceptions of community members focus our efforts, and we offer training to help others do the same.

Head of Unit

Professor Helen Skouteris

Healthy Working Lives

We collaborate with injured workers to improve compensation scheme and system design and implementation, and we embed them in every phase of our research to meet this goal.

Head of Unit

Professor Alex Collie

Healthy Active Cities

We’re passionate about harnessing citizen science to design research that supports policies, programs and infrastructure that genuinely enable and encourage active transport for all.

Head of Unit

Associate Professor Ben Beck

Public Health Genomics

Through our research into society’s perceptions of genetic testing and the legal and ethical issues surrounding it, we routinely gather the views of community members to shape our program and ongoing advocacy for evidence-based reform and practice based in genomic screening for preventable diseases.

Head of Unit

Professor Paul Lacaze

Transfusion Research

We undertake research and advocacy work pertaining to a number of common and rare cancers and haematological conditions, which is informed via extensive partnerships with community and patient groups.

Head of Unit

Professor Erica Wood AO

Centres and major initiatives

LEAPP Guidelines

Supporting Australian healthcare professionals with the latest evidence-based clinical recommendations for pregnancy and postnatal care, the guidelines are informed by a Consumer Panel.

Monash Partners – Consumer and Community Involvement

Experts from our School have helped Monash Partners complete research to develop evidence-based practice recommendations, resources, and training for researchers and consumers around the benefits of involving community members in research.

Monash University Clinical Trials Centre – Consumer Engagement Platform

The Monash University Clinical Trials Centre provides this unique and practical platform that connects academic and industry researchers to consumers and community members who are inspired to help shape health and medical research in Australia.

Strengthening implEMentation Practice and Research with Equity (SEMPRE)

Developing the first programmatic, multi-sectoral and transcultural program of research focused on advancing equity-centred Implementation Science across health, social care, and education.

Victorian Collaboration for Translating Research Outcomes into the Primary Health Interface (TROPHI)

Managed by researchers from our School, the University of Melbourne and the RACGP, TROPHI engages with GPs, decision makers, researchers and community members to generate practice-based evidence to improve healthcare and patient outcomes.