Grant: Patient-Oriented Research Collaboration Grants

We will work together with patients, caregivers, and members of the public, to make a website for Canadians about clinical trials and to help people understand what they are, why they are important, how people can become involved, and to provide other resources. We are the Network of Networks (N2), an organization representing many different organizations (hospitals, research institutes, companies) that are involved in and carry out clinical research. We help them carry out their work by providing tools for them, education for them, and by creating tools together that will help them carry out their work more easily. This website will be a first step we take towards creating a large public awareness campaign about clinical trials. Our Clinical Trials Education and Awareness Committee will carry out the work in this grant application. The Committee will work in partnership with Canadian patients, caregivers, and members of the public who bring many different viewpoints by: having different chronic illnesses, speaking French or English, and being male and female, parents of sick children, or Aboriginal. To quote a patient partner "a web-page of information as to why drug-trials are needed, will benefit untold participants and Canadians from coast to coast." Our team will collaboratively write content, create videos, and choose a design, including the right pictures, for the website, and then create buzz about the website to make sure that people who will benefit from its information know where to find it. We will send out professsionally-created, easy to read nformation about the website through N2's member and partner organizations, and through patient organizations. We hope this website will get people talking about clinical trials, weigh the positives and negatives about participating, make thoughtful decisions about participating in clinical trials, and maybe even help their health.