public health

Critical Realism: Opening the door to enriching the evidence base of public health co-creation

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Written by Katrina Messiha

Photo by Mārtiņš Zemlickis on Unsplash

In recent years, co-creation has become a widely used approach in public health research. This approach engages stakeholders such as local communities, policymakers and practitioners directly in the research process to develop interventions that are not only relevant but also sustainable and impactful. However, despite growing interest, many co-creation efforts in public health lack a clear theoretical foundation. There is often limited use of theory to guide how co-creation is done and how it can be evaluated effectively.

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Cancer is increasingly survivable – but it shouldn’t depend on your ability to ‘wrangle’ the health system

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Written by: Kevin Dew, Alex Broom, Chris Cunningham, Elizabeth Dennett, Kerry Chamberlain, and Richard Egan

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One in three of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives. But survival rates have improved to the point that two-thirds of those diagnosed live more than five years.

This extraordinary shift over the past few decades introduces new challenges. A large and growing proportion of people diagnosed with cancer are living with it, rather than dying of it.

In our recently published research we examined the cancer experiences of 81 New Zealanders (23 Māori and 58 non-Māori).

We found survivorship not only entailed managing the disease, but also “wrangling” a complex health system.

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