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. 2024 Jun;27(3):e14096.
doi: 10.1111/hex.14096.

Overarching Priorities for Health and Care Research in the United Kingdom: A Coproduced Synthesis of James Lind Alliance 'Top 10s'

Joanna C Crocker  1 , Lucy Moore  1 , Margaret Ogden  2 , Sally Crowe  3 , Maaz Khan  4   5 , Casper Schoemaker  6 , Noémi B A Roy  5 , Mark Taylor  7 , Toto Gronlund  8 , Teofila Bueser  9 , Madeline Tatum  10 , Benjamin Davies  11 , Teresa Finlay  1
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Overarching Priorities for Health and Care Research in the United Kingdom: A Coproduced Synthesis of James Lind Alliance 'Top 10s'

Joanna C Crocker et al. Health Expect. 2024 Jun.

Abstract

Introduction: James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) produce 'Top 10' lists of health and care research priorities through a structured, shared decision-making process with patients or service users, carers and health or care professionals who identify questions that are most important to them. To date, over 150 PSPs in different areas of health and care have published research priorities. Some PSPs share similar priorities, which could be combined, promoted and addressed through collaborative research to increase value and reduce research waste.

Aim: The aim of this study was to identify overarching themes common to JLA PSP priorities across different areas of health and care.

Methods: Our analysis included 'Top 10' research priorities produced by UK-based JLA PSPs between 2016 and 2020. The priorities were coded deductively by the Health Research Classification System (HRCS) health category and research activity. We then carried out online workshops with patients, service users and carers to generate new codes not already captured by this framework. Within each code, multistakeholder inductive thematic analysis was used to identify overarching themes, defined as encompassing priorities from three or more PSPs covering two or more health categories. We used codesign methods to produce an interactive tool for end users to navigate the overarching themes.

Results: Five hundred and fifteen research priorities from 51 PSPs were included in our analysis. The priorities together encompassed 20 of 21 HRCS health categories, the most common being 'generic health relevance' (22%), 'mental health' (18%) and 'musculoskeletal' (14%). We identified 89 overarching themes and subthemes, which we organised into a hierarchy with seven top-level themes: quality of life, caregivers and families, causes and prevention, screening and diagnosis, treatment and management, services and systems and social influences and impacts.

Conclusion: There are many overarching themes common to research priorities across multiple areas of health and care. To facilitate new research and research funding, we have developed an interactive tool to help researchers, funders and patients or service users to explore these priority topics. This is freely available to download online.

Patient or public contribution: Patients or service users and carers were involved throughout the study, including deciding the aims, designing the study, analysing priorities to identify themes, interpreting and reporting the findings.

Keywords: carers; interdisciplinary research; patients; priority setting; research agenda; research funding; research priorities.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of methods. *An overarching code was either an HRCS research activity or stakeholder‐generated code applied to priorities from at least three different PSPs from at least two different HRCS health categories (or ‘generic health relevance’).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Research priorities by HRCS health category (N = 515).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Frequency of top‐level overarching themes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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