Creating better public involvement ads

Our patient and public involvement (PPI) team get sent a lot of ads for public involvement opportunities. Some are good, some are… not so good.

In 2021, our (now retired) PPI Facilitator Mike Bell decided to talk to a group of members of the public, many of whom had not been involved in PPI before, to find out what they want to see in a PPI ad. He ran a workshop to identify the barriers people might have to engaging with these opportunities. The workshop concentrated on the design and information included in communications materials sent to potential participants.

The group established a variety of ways that researchers seeking PPI input could improve their approach. It was agreed that clear, colourful, and concise information is far more useful and inspiring than including extensive information and context on the background of the study. Although they agreed this information was still important, it could follow later as a second step in the recruitment process.

Mike showed a variety of designs and materials from different studies and the group unanimously agreed that the picture below was the ‘perfect’ advert, although they agreed it should say ‘paid’ rather than reimbursed.