Identifying research priorities to improve cancer control for Indigenous Australians

A systematic review to identify research priority setting in Black and minority ethnic health and evaluate their processes

“…They concerned Latino health in the US [ 24 , 37 ], refugee and immigrant health in the US [ 25 , 26 , 32 ], the health of indigenous Australians [ 28 , 29 , 36 ], the health of native Americans [ 27 ], the health of Asian youth in New Zealand [ 34 , 35 ], South Asian health in the UK [ 30 , 33 ], the health of minority and underrepresented communities in the US [ 22 , 23 ], and Black and Hispanic health in the US [ 21 , 31 ]. Six studies did not include patient and public involvement (PPI) as participants in establishing research priorities [ 21 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 32 , 35 ], Five studies had PPI involvement alongside other stakeholders such as healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, and decision makers [ 26 , 28 , 30 , 33 , 37 ]. Four studies involved only BAME PPI as participants [ 29 , 31 , 34 , 36 ] and 2 studies involved multi-ethnic PPI in identifying priorities and highlighted the differences in identified priorities by ethnicity [ 22 , 23 ].…”

“…The research priorities were expressed as prioritised research topics, priority themes, top 10 prioritised lists, and more extensive lists of research questions. Top identified priorities included the need for greater inclusion of Latino children in medical research [ 24 ], the design and delivery and location of mental health services for refugees [ 25 ], access and engagement with suicide prevention services for people from immigrant and refugee backgrounds [ 26 ], Expansive commitments of indigenous approaches to inquiry for suicide in indigenous populations [ 27 ], cancer prevention and early detection in indigenous Australians [ 28 ], ethical principles for aboriginal e-health research [ 29 ], research on quality of life for minority and underserved populations [ 22 ], child health research and mental health for minority and underserved populations [ 23 ], complex, intergenerational nature of health involving social, cultural, and environmental determinants of health for Aboriginal and Torres strait islander communities [ 36 ], research into the effectiveness of alternative medicines for South Asian children [ 33 ], promoting exercise following surgery for South Asian patients undergoing knee replacement surgery [ 30 ], evaluating newcomer programs identifying how family and community stressors affect newly arrived immigrants and refugee adolescents functioning in school [ 32 ], how does a mothers stress affect the baby? for women of colour [ 31 ], policies that subsidise accessibility of healthy foods to improve diet among Latino families [ 37 ], integration of behavioural and cultural components into research to prevent and treat paediatric obesity in predominantly Black and Hispanic communities [ 21 ], cultural differences and identity for young Asian New Zealanders [ 34 ] and cultural identity, integration and acculturation in young Asian new Zealanders [ 35 ].…”

“…Underpinning most of the prioritisation exercises were strong notions of equality, fairness and justice for people underrepresented in research, with a focus on community research ownership, community action, collaboration and partnership. An appropriate level of BAME PPI involvement was included in most studies [ 22 , 23 , 28 – 31 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 ]. Six studies did not report any BAME PPI [ 21 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 32 , 35 ] and one study used a very small sample of BAME PPI [ 26 ].…”

“…Studies adopted either a consensus-based approach, [ 24 , 27 , 29 , 33 ] a metrics-based approach [ 21 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 37 ] or a combination of both [ 22 , 23 , 25 , 31 , 32 ]. A small minority of studies used thematic analysis to identify themes borne from focus group discussions and described these as the research priorities [ 34 – 36 ].…”

“…All 17 studies can be seen in Table 3. The topic areas were child obesity [21,24], mental health [25], suicide [26,27], cancer [28], E-health [29], knee replacement surgery [30], pre-term birth [31], healthy school development [32], and in health more generally [22][23][24][33][34][35][36]. The prioritisation exercises were conducted to determine health research priorities in these topic areas for a range of different ethnicities in high income countries.…”