Project Overview
The Toolkit for Independence project aims to strengthen and support an independent health consumer voice in Australian health policy. This project will develop and test practical tools to support health consumer organisations to manage industry relationships and sponsorship.
This work builds on the 2020 national ‘Trust and Transparency’ workshop, where representatives from health consumer groups co-developed a set of core principles for managing sponsorship.
Bringing together expertise in policy, public health, bioethics, sociology, law, and consumer rights, our project will produce up–to–date evidence on patient group–industry relationships and governance approaches practiced by health consumer organisations. This initiative is a close partnership between the health consumer sector and academic researchers that aims to propose and test solutions to a commercial determinant of health and a challenge often considered intractable.
The Toolkit for Independence project is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) under the Ideas Grant scheme.
Objectives
Identify and describe existing policy and legal tools used internationally to address organisational conflicts of interest.
Understand Australian health consumer organisations’ governance of pharmaceutical and medical device industry sponsorship.
Understand the public’s perception of risks and expectations associated with industry sponsorship.
Understand the practical needs of Australian health consumer groups to manage industry sponsorships.
Collaborate with Australian health consumer organisations to design a ‘Toolkit for Independence’, that delivers independent guidance and practical assistance for organisations’ governance of industry sponsorship.
The Team
Barbara Mintzes, University of Sydney
Anthony Brown, Health Consumers NSW
Lisa Parker, University of Sydney
Jason Chin, Australian National University
Kellia Chiu, University of Sydney
Lisa Bero, University of Colorado
Joel Lexchin, York University, Canada
Cinzia Colombo, Istituto Mario Negri
Dorothy Drabarek, University of Sydney
Bella Spongberg-Ross, Health Consumers NSW
Judith Mackson, University of Sydney
Alice Fabbri, University of Bath
Saki Taluker, University of Sydney
Fabian Held, University of Sydney
Elizabeth Deveny, Consumers Health Forum
Tom Johnson, Consumers Health Forum
Julia Brockhausen, Health Consumers NSW
Contact
Please send any queries to toolkit.study@sydney.edu.au
