Public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) is a very valuable part of research, and one I have found both enjoyable and incredibly useful for planning projects and ensuring my work reflects the views of those the research is about. For my PhD project on the financial impacts of childhood illness, I have recently completed PPIE work with two youth groups in the North East – the Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG) North East and the Youth Forum in Gateshead.

For both groups I delivered a session exploring young people’s perspectives of the barriers to young people’s healthcare access during the cost-of-living crisis (COLC). The experience I gained from these sessions working with the public and having engaging discussions has been extremely valuable for developing my skills as a researcher as well as providing me with perspectives I had not encountered in my background research. 

“Incorporating PPIE into my PhD project was an invaluable experience for developing both my research itself “

Abi Collins standing with her poster at a conference

These sessions revealed local and accessible healthcare, transport, dependence and family situations, negative perceptions and mistrust, and communication as six key barriers to young people accessing healthcare in the COLC.

I was able to present the findings from the PPIE sessions back to YPAG so they could confirm no important points were missed, and the work is ready to be taken forward to help inform my future research. The group were also shown a youth theatre performance of Fed Up! about child food poverty in the North East at this feedback session, allowing the young people to see both how their input will be used to inform future research as well as watch a dynamic theatre performance informed by those greatly impacted by the cost-of-living crisis in the UK.

Incorporating PPIE into my PhD project was an invaluable experience for developing both my research itself and my skills as a researcher for working with the public. It was also an experience I greatly enjoyed, and would recommend to all PhD students to build into their research.