The People's Review protocol now published in Research Involvement and Engagement

In todays world of information over-load, it can be difficult to make decisions about our health. It is easy to find all sorts of information about health. However, it is much more difficult to find trust-worthy and reliable information. The decisions we make about our health should be based on the best evidence available — but how do we find it? Well, a systematic review is a method used by researchers, clinicians, and others to find all the evidence that has been published about a healthcare treatment. Systematic reviews use clear and careful steps to find relevant studies, assess the trustworthiness of the studies, and put together the results of those studies. These steps give us the best evidence available about whether a particular healthcare treatment works or not. However, lots of people don't know what systematic reviews are, and the important role they play in healthcare. The People’s Review is an innovative project that will give the public the opportunity to learn about systematic reviews by doing a systematic review. Anyone can take part and help us do a systematic review together. People will learn about what systematic reviews are, how they work and why they matter. We will support the public throughout, so that everyone will learn new skills. In the end, we will have a systematic review led and conducted by the public. This article describes how we plan to involve the public in all the key stages of The People’s Review through an easy-to-use online platform. Our plans were also formulated and decided with members of the public on the planning group.

Read the full article here.

To cite this article: Quinn, É., Dawson, S., Holt, J. et al. The People’s Review protocol: planning an innovative study powered by the public. Res Involv Engagem 11, 28 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-025-00682-7