How can involving families in research make health programs more effective?
This study examined how involving parents as research partners through a Family Advisory Council helped improve engagement, study design, and retention in the Guelph Family Health Study.
What We Did and Why We Did It
We created a Family Advisory Council made up of 14 parents who participated in the Guelph Family Health Study. Parents provided feedback on study procedures, recruitment strategies, intervention materials, and ways to make participation easier for families. Researchers evaluated the Council’s impact through surveys, focus groups, meeting attendance, and examples of changes made based on parent feedback.
Family-based health research depends on keeping families engaged over time, but long-term studies often face challenges with participant retention. Parents understand their own family’s needs, routines, and barriers better than anyone, so researchers wanted to explore whether involving parents as active partners could make research more relevant, practical, and successful.
What We Found
What We Can Learn From This
Parents reported that they felt their opinions were valued and that their feedback had a meaningful impact on the study. Suggestions from the Family Advisory Council led to changes such as improving intervention emails, creating child-friendly activity monitor bands, simplifying questionnaires, and improving study communication. These changes may have contributed to the high retention rate of the GFHS pilot, with 95% of families completing the 6-month follow-up.
Including families as partners—not just participants—can help create health programs that better reflect real-life experiences and needs. Providing convenient meeting times, childcare, food, and creating a supportive environment helped keep parents engaged. This approach highlights the value of working collaboratively with families when designing health interventions.
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