About the Inclusive Health Research collective
Who are we?
We are a group of researchers at Deakin University who work in the area of Inclusive Health. Our collaboration includes researchers from nursing, speech pathology, occupational therapy, medicine, health promotion, health economics, epidemiology, sociology and disability studies.
We work closely with collaborators and co-researchers from the community. Our research partners often include people with disability, family members and supporters, health professionals, and representatives from the health and disability industries.
What do we research?
We believe that people with disability should have equal access to health services, and should have a say in how health services are designed.
We are involved in a wide range of health research relating to people with a disability. For example:
- Designing accessible health information for people with disability
- Designing and evaluating assistive technology products and services
- Designing and evaluating service models, including telepractice (health services delivered over the phone or via a computer).
We also help other teams to make their research methods and findings inclusive.
You can learn more about some of our current projects here.
How do we work?
We use a range of research methods to learn about people’s healthcare experiences.
- We gather people’s stories through interviews and group discussions. We often use pictures, devices or sign language to help people who have communication disability participate in an interview.
- Sometimes we use arts-based methods to let people tell their stories. For example, people might tell us about their healthcare experiences by taking a photograph, creating a drawing, or making a body map with words and pictures.
- Observational research involves watching people using a health product or service. This helps us to see what works and what doesn’t work in real life.
- Surveys allow us to ask a large number of people about their opinions on health or healthcare. We can create surveys that are accessible for people who have difficulty reading, seeing or understanding.
- We use supported decision-making to make sure that all of our research partners can give consent to be involved, and have their wishes and preferences respected. This includes children and people with intellectual or cognitive disability.
We love to share our research tips and resources with other teams. You can learn more about our methods here.
Contact us
If you have a question for our team or would like to partner with us, you can email our lead researchers:
Dr Kate Anderson ([email protected])
Dr Jo Watson ([email protected])