What approaches are used to facilitate people from under-served communities getting involved with health research? A public contributor led review.

Evidence indicates that people from under-served groups are likely to bear the greatest burden of ill-health but are often not included in research involvement activities. It is a requirement of funders (i.e. NIHR) for research funding applications to demonstrate that inclusive patient and public involvement (PPI) has supported the application and is embedded throughout the project. This review was led by PPI contributors from the NIHR Oxford and Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centres' Diversity in Research Group (DiR Group). Group members are from under-served communities and the Group exists to support researchers to make their research more inclusive. The PPI contributor authors were trained in reviewing methods and worked on all aspects of this project. We followed a standard approach to literature searching and in June 2022 identified eight papers from the UK relevant to our topic. An additional ten papers were identified from a repeated search in May 2024. From these publications we found three key themes that are important for successful PPI with under-served groups: Population (people relevant to the research are involved); Relationship Building (between researchers and PPI contributors); Practicalities (payment, venues and activities). We found that the approaches in the literature reflected the UK Standards for Public Involvement, "Inclusive Opportunities" although, in general, authors did not directly reference the standards. We have also demonstrated that PPI contributors can have a direct role in conducting research activities when given appropriate training and support.