Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jun 10, 2021
Date Accepted: Oct 20, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jan 4, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The future of disability research in Australia: protocol for a multi-phase research prioritisation exercise.
ABSTRACT
Background:
For people with disability to live a good life it is essential that funded research in health and social care addresses their interests, meets their needs and fills gaps in our understanding of services, systems and policies. Decisions about research funding should be based on a clear understanding of the research priorities of people with disability, their supporters and allies, disability researchers, service providers, and policy makers working in the field.
Objective:
The aim of this protocol is to describe the research design and methods of a large-scale disability research priority setting exercise in Australia, conducted in 2021.
Methods:
The research prioritisation exercise involves 3 integrated phases of work. In the first phase, a previous Audit of Disability Research in Australia is updated to understand prior research and continuing gaps in the research. Building on this, the second phase involves public consultation which includes a national survey, a consultation process undertaken through the government and non-government sector, and targeted consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, children with disabilities and their families, people with cognitive disability, and people with complex communication needs. Phase 3 involves a multi-staged modified Delphi study which will develop research priorities based on the outcomes of all phases.
Results:
Work has started on two parts of the research prioritisation exercise. The research mapping exercise identified We identified 1241 journal articles and book chapters (referred to as ‘research papers’) and 225 publicly available reports (referred to as ‘research reports’) produced over the 2018-2020 period. The data collection for the national survey has also been completed. We received 973 fully completed responses to the survey. Analysis of these data is currently underway.
Conclusions:
This multi-dimensional research prioritisation study will be the first to provide an indication of the areas of health and social research people across the Australian disability community consider should be prioritised in disability research funding decisions. Project results from all phases will be made publicly available through reports, open access journal publications, and easy-read documents.
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