Who are 'Consumers'?
The Cochrane Collaboration defines a consumer as: someone who uses, is affected by, or who is entitled to use a health related service; a relative or carer; or someone who advocates on behalf of broader group of people.

You can find more information about consumers and how others have been involved on the Cochrane Consumer Network website.

Why do we want consumer involvement?

The Airways Group are looking for consumers to read, review and comment on our protocols or reviews.

Our volunteers put a lot of effort into writing systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. Therefore we are keen that the reviews are read and understood by many people and are relevant to the needs of consumers worldwide.

• We want consumers to read and comment on our protocols (i.e. plans for the reviews), so that the reviews developed from them are relevant to consumers and their needs.
• We want consumers to read and comment on our reviews, in particular the plain language summary. The plain language summary is a short description of the review; it is the most widely read part of the review and it is supposed to be understood by consumers such as doctors and healthcare users. We want your help to make plain language summaries clearer and easier to understand.
• We are also keen to user consumers’ opinions to prioritise important new reviews and provide clinical questions. Watch this space for details of how you can get involved in upcoming projects.

How can consumers get involved?
We welcome consumers from all over the world; if you are interested in getting involved either as a consumer peer reviewer or in some other way (as we start to get consumer projects up-and-running) please contact Emma Jackson at ejackson@sgul.ac.uk and Emma will add you to our mailing list.