Co-Production. Power. Change. Worth the Risk.

How can co-production help get research findings into practice and life? Consider strategy and tactics based on researchers’ and public’s capacity, willingness, and opportunity to co-produce.

Proem

When your 10-year-old child plans, purchases ingredients and prepares dinner for the family every Thursday, that’s co-production. When neighborhood residents work closely with police to allocate resources to identify and address local safety risks, that’s co-production. When patients and caregivers — people with lived experience — serve as co-Primary Investigators (PIs) in research, that’s co-production. Several readers and listeners of last week’s episode Walk the Talk. Person-First and Co-Production asked me to say more about co-production. Luckily, I had this episode in the works for a future date. Easy enough to move it up in the queue. Here you go.

Little did I know. Growing into co-production.

My first experience with co-production occurred in 1997 (although we didn’t use the term then). It involved forming member and provider advisory panels as Director of Quality Management at the Troy, NY, office of Value Behavioral Health. Jim Bulger, Executive Director of this managed behavioral health company, wanted the counsel of members and providers about causes…