Illustration of three people with speech bubbles with charts and graphs, demonstrating dissemination

Step 5:
Disseminating your findings

Why it’s important

Having worked with public members throughout your project, it's important to let them know what becomes of the work they contributed to. Sharing your research findings with public partners helps them see the difference they made to a project, and to health and healthcare more widely.

Public members can also play a key role in communicating to others what your research found, why it matters, and what should happen next to ensure real-world impact. Knowledge generated with the public should be easily accessible by the public, and clearly communicating the benefits of research can build trust with communities and encourage them to get involved in future projects. Additionally, quotes from patients and public members can be powerful in helping stakeholders and policymakers understand the importance of your research and can increase engagement with your work.

Common barriers

Writing in plain language is a different skill set to academic writing and, like any skill, it can take time and practice to develop. Working with public members is a great way to improve, as they'll help you focus on what is most relevant and identify where your messaging isn't clear.

“Being involved in research has shown me how important it is to share results with the people who’ve helped. It’s essential that public partners know the outcomes of the projects they have contributed to. It builds a sense of ownership and trust.”

- Asmahan Al Nidawi, public member

“After working with you throughout the project, sharing experiences, advice, and suggestions to help shape the research, we want to know how it turns out and what was discovered.”

- Jan, public member

Sharing your findings with public partners

  • Share progress reports or newsletters throughout your project to keep public partners informed of the results. It can be helpful to discuss with your group at the start of the project what their preferred method of communication is.

  • Highlight the impact of public involvement on the project. Give examples to make it real, and offer public partners a chance to create their own summaries of what they've done and the impact it has had.

  • At the end of your project, send a plain language summary of your results to all public partners and research participants.

Smiling woman presenting a poster to a young person.

Disseminating your findings to stakeholders and the public

  • Public members can help identify key messages, areas for further research, and opportunities for change in policy and practice.

  • Work with public members to identify your target audiences, discuss ways to reach them, and develop relevant communication materials.

  • Invite public partners to write about their personal experience of being involved in the project. This can be helpful in reflecting on what went well with the public involvement and what could have been improved. Also, when public partners share about positive experiences with research, it can encourage other public members to get involved in future projects.

  • Set expectations around how long it can take for a paper to be published in an academic journal, and make sure you have consent to keep hold of public partners' emails after the project ends so that you can notify them if and when a paper does get published.

  • Invite your public partners to share dissemination materials with their networks and create opportunities for them to present to community groups and organisations. These dissemination materials are also great for sharing with service providers and policymakers, as what's clear and engaging for the public will also be clear and engaging for them.

Here are some ideas for how to involve public partners in engaging different target audiences:

Researchers and
Healthcare Professionals

Invite public partners to present at conferences or be co-authors in academic publications or opinion pieces. They can help put in context why the research matters and what should happen next.

Service Providers and Policymakers

Invite public partners to present on why the findings matter and how they can be used to improve health and healthcare for patients and carers. Personal stories can have a big impact.

Patients and
Public Members

Work with public partners to develop clear and accessible dissemination materials. You can get creative with this - think blogs, infographics, videos, comics, murals, or short films!

Resources

Snippet from a blog post titled 'Meet one of the Public Steering Group members' including two paragraphs of text and a photo of the group working together.
Snippet from an infographic titled 'What makes it harder for some patients to attend hospital appointments', with illustrations of the different factors they found.
A group of people sitting down looking through booklets and talking to each other.
Snippet of a comic showing hospital staff pushing a bed down a hallway with various safety hazards (boxes blocking the way, banana peel on the floor, puddle of water).

Frequently asked questions

  • Here are some tips from our public partners:

    • Work with your public partners to decide in advance who will be writing what. It's great if public partners can write some of the paper themselves, rather than just reviewing it, and they should be given choice over which sections they want to write.

    • Make sure everyone is clear on the intended audiences and the key messages you want to convey.

    • Give public partners enough time to write their sections - remember that they'll have to find time around their existing responsibilities to do this.

    • Consider how you can support people if English isn't their first language or they don't feel confident writing in English. Perhaps they can write in their preferred language and you can get this translated. Or they can make a recording of themselves speaking, and you can transcribe this for them.

    You can find further guidance on this from the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network's guide on How to involve the public as co-authors.