Better together: mitigating consumer vulnerability risk in healthcare systems through strengthening consumer co-production capacity

• Consumer vulnerability risk in co-production emerges from unequal power relations and exclusionary partnerships in services. • Consumer experiential knowledge must be recognised, valued, leveraged, and rewarded for partnership-based co-production. • Practices for strengthening consumer co-production capacity acknowledge and address power imbalances and relations. Service scholars tacitly assume that healthcare consumers, professionals, and researchers possess the requisite capacities and resources for service co-production with healthcare organizations. However, conflicting epistemes may increase experiences of vulnerability during co-production. Our paper aims to explore how healthcare organizations can enable and sustain meaningful consumer involvement in healthcare co-production to deliver transformative outcomes. Our participatory research with young people with type 1 diabetes and family members identified key practices (i.e., constructing, connecting, and co-learning) that support meaningful involvement of consumers in healthcare co-production. We introduce strengthening consumer co-production capacity as a means of mitigating risk of vulnerability and advancing epistemic justice in co-production. We demonstrate that healthcare organizations can and should prioritize continuous strengthening of consumers’ co-production capacity, acknowledge and respect differentiated expertise and perspectives, and foster mutual respect to maximize and sustain co-production partnerships.