Richard Wike, Laura Silver, Shannon Schumacher and Aidan Connaughton

Pew Research Center: A four-nation Pew Research Center survey conducted in November and December of 2020 finds that roughly two-thirds of adults in France and the U.S., as well as about half in the United Kingdom, believe their political system needs major changes or needs to be completely reformed. Calls for significant reform are less common in Germany, where about four-in-ten express this view.

Maureen Markle-Reid, Rebecca Ganann, Jenny Ploeg, Gail Heald-Taylor, Laurie Kennedy, C McAiney, Ruta Valaitis

Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity: This paper describes the lessons learned from a patient-oriented research program, the Aging, Community and Health Research Unit (ACHRU), on how to engage older adults with multimorbidity as research partners. Over the past 7-years, over 40 older adults from across Canada have been involved in 17 ACHRU projects as patient research partners.

Chandrima Chakraborty

Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences: Dr. Chandrima Chakraborty, a Professor of English and Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University, is taking a distinctly humanities-based approach to investigating one of the most subtle forms of discrimination —the racism persistent in official public discourse.

Chandrima Chakraborty

The Hamilton Spectator: The pandemic is hurting some groups more than others by inflaming old fault lines of racism, nationalism, economic exploitation and other structural inequalities, in ways that have deep impact. The illness itself, though, is not the only problem. It also brings hate and fear to the surface, following a long and tiresome pattern.

Fiona Keogh, Patricia Carney, Eamon O’Shea

Health Expectations: There are few examples of public patient involvement in policymaking for groups whose ability to participate may be affected by a disability, particularly for people with dementia and their family carers. Two innovative methods were used to increase involvement of people with dementia and family carers in the policymaking process in Ireland, specifically in relation to impending legislation on home care.

Katherine Boothe

Health Economics, Policy and Law: This research examines the adoption of public and patient involvement in pharmaceutical assessment in Canada. It finds tensions between scientific legitimacy that prioritizes rigor and objectivity, and democratic legitimacy that values inclusion and a broader range of evidence. In response to policy change, experts incorporate new ideas about democratic inputs and processes, while maintaining scientific policy goals. The research responds to calls for more precise measurement of ideas and ideational change and more evaluation of public and patient involvement in health policy. It helps us understand the significance of, and limits to, ideational change among experts in health policy domains that are highly technical and publicly salient.

Sandra Moll, Michelle Wyndham-West, Gillian Mulvale, Sean Park, Alexis Buettgen, Michelle Phoenix, Robert Fleisig, Emma Bruce

BMJ Open: ‘Codesign’ and associated terms such as ‘coproduction’ or ‘patient engagement’, are increasingly common in the health research literature, due to an increased emphasis on the importance of ensuring that research related to service/systems development is meaningful to end-users. However, there continues to be a lack of clarity regarding the key principles and practices of codesign, and wide variation in the extent to which service users are meaningfully engaged in the process. The purpose of this paper is to prompt critical reflection on the nature of codesign research with vulnerable populations, including key issues to consider in the initial planning phases, the implementation process, and final outputs.

Julia Abelson, Rebecca Gannon, Maureen Markle-Reid, Parminder Raina

McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA): The following guidance document is to be used to plan for and involve Patient, Caregiver, and Public Research Partners in the activities and projects facilitated by the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA) Collaborative for Health & Aging. Below, we outline the core principles that should guide the involvement of Patients, Caregivers and Public Research Partners in activities of the Collaborative and the best practices for carrying this out.

Regan M. Johnston, Anwar Sheluchin, Clifton van der Linden

Politics and Gender: Households in Canada and Australia have exhibited similar trends in the gendered allocation of additional child care responsibilities resulting from policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we employ survey data to analyze the extent to which policy interventions related to COVID-19 have exacerbated gender disparities in child care obligations. We find that existing asymmetrical distributions of child care obligations in Canada and Australia have been amplified during the pandemic, resulting in a disproportionate burden on women. During the pandemic we also find that, in households with children, women tend to report experiencing poorer mental health than men.

Yukiko Asada, Robin Urquhart, Marion Brown, Grace Warner, Mary McNally, Andrea Murphy

Canadian Journal of Bioethics: Public engagement efforts in health policy have posed many value-laden questions, yet those that appreciate the complexity and diversity of the concept of health equity are rare. We introduce the airness Dialogues, a new method for deliberating health equity among the general public. We provide its theoretical underpinning and present its empirical illustration and qualitative assessment.