Monday, 18 September 2023

embers to the group. New member Joan introduced herself to group. The objectives of the meeting were to:

• discuss the importance and value of community engagement in raising awareness, building knowledge and informing behaviour change. 
• discuss our aims of raising awareness of better hearing and brain health and getting involved with research, in our local community, alongside our PPIE group members and discuss ideas for how we could do this. 
• discuss an upcoming research project titled: CHIEF Study – Cochlear implants and inner ear inflammation. 

Kate started the first activity – ‘How can we get the message out?’ – which was all about how we can use community engagement to get key messages about hearing health out into the community. Kate gave a brief overview of what community engagement is, the value of it and then went on to discuss the community engagement work she has been doing over the last year. 

After a brief introduction into the community engagement projects, we went into small groups for discussions. Each group were asked to discuss one (or all) of the four questions listed below: 

• what information and resources are lacking in the community?
• how can we get the information out there?
• how can we get the information to a diverse and broad group of people?
• how can we work together to get the information out there?

The group came up with lots of great ideas for how we can get the message out there.

The second half of the meeting we discussed an upcoming study the CHIEF (Cochlear implantation and inner ear inflammation) study. Kate asked for any feedback on the project from the group and we discussed the importance of members of the public reviewing project documents before they are used in studies. 

Finally, Ella, a third-year medical student, then gave a brief overview of her upcoming project where she will investigate barriers to hearing aid use in people living with dementia or cognitive impairment. Ella explained how the project will run and asked if members of the group would be happy to share the advert of the study.