Community Research
What is Community Research?
Community Research aims to ensure the voices of different communities are actively involved in health and social care research to ensure that research findings meet the needs of those communities. Typically, a community researcher identifies with the community that they are engaging with.
How are Autek Getting Involved?
Autek’s team includes two Directors who have a research background and who are keen to ensure Autistic and Disabled voices are represented in all health and social care research, and that our priorities form a part of the research agenda. Only through research can we start to understand and change the health inequalities that we face.
Our current activities:
- We engage with any research initiative where our lived experience as autistic and disabled people provides a valid perspective that will help the research be more inclusive in recruiting participants, including research aimed at improving autistic involvement.
- We provide PPIE (Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement) services for any research project that wishes to actively engage with autistic or disabled participants. This includes communications, leading workshops, and case finding.
- We are leading on two main strands of research in collaboration with research minded public sector and Universities to understand:
- The relationship between Communication with health care practitioners and outcomes for autistic patients.
- Understanding what an Autistic pathway should contain for autistic people who are also diabetic.