HCR.20.003 – From Science to Value: Taking citizens values into account in designing public health interventions.

PROJECT AIM
This project aims to develop a framework to include citizens values into all phases of scientific research, policy and individual decision making of public health interventions. To optimize interventions to promote and protect public health, these interventions should be based on a broad public support and should optimize individuals’ health as well. Therefore, public health interventions should be aligned with individual health risks and the values of individuals making the decisions as well as take into account the citizens’ perspective. Public health policy needs to be citizen-based and personalized. This is a complex challenge. We aim to develop this approach for two public health issues: (1) vaccination against infectious childhood diseases; and (2) population colon and breast cancer screening.
OBJECTIVES
1: To develop a procedure in which a citizens perspective is taken into account when developing or changing health policies by making use of a citizens’ council.
2: To determine values and beliefs of the target groups when making individual decisions about public health interventions.
3: To design public health policies that optimize public as well as individual health taking into account individual values.
OVERALL DESIGN
We will design several risk-based and/or values-based personalized scenarios for vaccination and cancer screening and study the added value of these scenarios by comparing these to the standard scenarios. First, the citizen councils will contribute the citizens’ perspective into the project. Second, using mathematical modelling informed by large databases, we will design alternative personalized vaccination scenarios and, third, alternative personalized colon and breast cancer scenarios. Fourth, we will study the target groups’ values and beliefs to be included in alternative scenarios, as well as their evaluation of and decisions about alternative scenarios. Fifth, we study the ethical and societal considerations and implications of the scenarios.

Keywords

citizen science, informed individual decision making, Personalized public health, population cancer screening, vaccination

Other organisations

Erasmus Medical Center (EMC), GGD, Hogeschool Amsterdam, NIVEL, Radboud Medical Center (RUMC), Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM), UMCU, WUR