Aim:

We seek to substantially advance research capacity and capability across child health. Our particular attention is in areas currently lacking research due to being deemed as too methodologically challenging (e.g. community-based health, social care, complex interventions) and new interdisciplinary areas that are central for addressing big future health challenges (e.g. paediatric MedTech, mental health, and prevention of multiple long-term conditions).

Our work:

From 2020 to 2023 we established a national network of practitioners, methodologists, and service users, and built shared understanding of key challenges and opportunities. In 2023-24, we have focused on building on that earlier work, by undertaking a national prioritisation project. This CHISEL (Child Health Trials Methodology Prioritisation) Project seeks to identify and agree the Top10 key methodological challenges that require to be addressed to increase the number and quality of child health trials in the UK.

CHISEL includes all aspects of child health (0-16yrs) and any types of trials that consists of an intervention and a comparator. The project has so far involved over 120 participants (children, young people, parents, child health experts, and methodologists), who have provided 1101 challenges to child health trials. From these, through consensus discussions with a range of topic experts, we have summarised the methodological challenges into 54 questions.

We now invite you to have a say, and prioritise: which do you think are the 10 most pressing methodological challenges to increasing the quality and volume of child health trials?

Please do take part now, HERE.

From this survey, a final short list of items will be taken to an in-person, national workshop, to be held in September 2024, and the Top10 child health trial methodology priorities agreed. Once agreed, these final Top10 priorities will be published and disseminated widely. We will then begin, as part of the Methodology Incubator, the collective work to address the agreed priorities.

We have also made freely available the full list of items that informed the 54 questions, HERE. We are now working through the remaining items that were not methodological challenges but related to wider infrastructure, resources, or training. Once categorised, we will also provide an open access link to these.

Contact:

Niina Kolehmainen