Hear Us

It is crucial that primary care research and services fully reflect and respond to population needs. Yet, people and communities with the greatest health and care burden are least likely to influence research, potentially sustaining or even worsening health inequalities. Community members have told us that although they would value opportunities to influence research, they don’t know how, or can’t always engage in the ways offered. The targeted engagement and involvement of under-served populations is therefore vital to ensure that primary care research, services, and treatments are relevant and equitable.

Increasingly poetic enquiry is being used in research to amplify the voices of those who are seldom-heard, to understand and share lived experience, and to communicate findings in an accessible way. Found poetry is an approach which uses text from various sources and refashions them to create new meaning through poetry.

Co-led by public involvement and engagement (PPIE) leads and a public member, the creative enquiry ‘Hear Us’ will:

• build on existing PPIE staff networks

• further develop relationships with individuals and communities less represented in research

• be a catalyst for new community outreach and engagement work

PPIE leads in a number of academic primary care research centres will be invited to gather existing text and illustrated materials from meetings and events, and to undertake prospective work, to understand the views and opinions of people from underserved communities on:

• their primary care priorities

• their perceptions of research

• ways to support their involvement in and engagement with research

Working together, the project team will collate and transform the submissions into a collection of illustrated found poetry. Through this enquiry we aim to:

• build positive community relationships

• raise public awareness of primary care research

• give community members an opportunity to share their experiences and views

• raise awareness of public priorities and experiences in an engaging and accessible way

• share learning about ways to involve and engage people from underserved communities

• encourage researchers to examine their own involvement and engagement practice

Further, the exhibit will offer academic primary care researchers the opportunity to interact with the poem during the conference via a written response to what they have heard. This in turn will be fashioned into a new poem, the works having meaning collectively and individually.