Understanding the complex relationships between different research topics in the world of health and care can help researchers and patient groups find cross-cutting issues, develop joint research and funding, create shared learnings and support services that make the experience of being a patient and a practitioner less siloed and more integrated into their lives and lived experiences.

The project builds on the work of priority setting partnerships that were established with support from the James Lind Alliance. These partnerships help the ‘end users’ of health research – patients, carers and clinicians – propose and agree on the most important topics in need of research.

Since then, ‘top ten’ research priorities have been produced by over 100 Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) across a wide variety of health conditions, care settings and populations. 

“The tool looks fantastic and is a pleasure to use, and other users are very impressed by it.“

Joanna Crocker, Senior Researcher, University of Oxford

Joanna’s research identified seven big themes repeatedly prioritised by PSPs:

• ‘Quality of life issues’ associated with our physical and mental wellbeing, functioning and flourishing
• Social influences and impacts on our health and care
• Issues relating to patients’ caregivers and families
• Causes and associated preventative public health measures
• Health service and system challenges
• Interconnections between treatment and management of illnesses
• Research issues in screening and diagnosis

We initially developed a website that would help people to navigate between different levels but ultimately established that an interactive PDF would be more practical to maintain and use. 

We hope that the intuitive flow that connects different themes and sub themes will help researchers find connections between different conditions, and look forward to working with Joanna as different stakeholders provide feedback and offer suggestions for improving and connecting underlying research. 

You can learn more about the priority setting partnerships here.

Interactive resource

You can use the interactive resource below by clicking the 'start' button or download the resource here.
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