Co-creation for health research

Co-creation refers to communities of interest working in partnership with researchers throughout the research process alongside a plan to identify and address power imbalances between communities and researchers. Co-creation may take on distinct forms, but has some common steps: building relationships, identifying assets, developing a co-creation structure, engaging communities and researchers to create an output, critically reflecting, and disseminating findings. An expanding evidence base demonstrates how co-creation can develop public health interventions, strengthen capacity, partially rebalance power, and meaningfully engage the public. Co-creation can accommodate diverse communities, thus providing specific strategies to make health research studies more inclusive. We used co-creation structures and principles to develop this paper on co-creation for health research. It provides an in-depth exploration of co-creation as a methodology and its relation to other participatory approaches, outlines key steps, explains practical applications for health research, considers limitations, and notes opportunities. By critically examining co-creation, we highlight the importance of good practices documenting co-creation in research. Many challenges in implementing co-creation can be anticipated and mitigated. Co-creation may be a powerful tool to reshape health research, facilitate reflection, partially rebalance power, and advance community-driven health research.