As a Lived Experience based charity one of the main hopes we had for Levy funded research around gambling harms once UKRI were granted commissioning oversight was that the much talked about emergence of Peer co-production in research as a direction of travel was backed by actual funding and supported by research teams to come about.
Today marks a potential milestone in seeing this hope being realised.
We are asking for volunteers to complete a short survey, literally just 4 questions, and some basic DEI information.
All aimed at learbing more aout how sleep and gambling harms co-exist and feed into each other.
Ok, so what sets this survey out as being different?
Well, normally such surveys try to ascertain information which you already have about a given subject. In other words, someone has already decided what it is which you might know that is useful to them in building their own understanding.
That approach actually uses the person answering the survey as evidence gathering rather than as inspiration.
Today’s survey takes a radically different approach.
Working with the University of York, and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV) we are seeking your help not in telling us what you already know, but in telling us what you think you might not know but which you think it would be valuable to know.
The answers you give will help set the direction of investigation for a whole new research area.
Truly this represents a massive step towards full co-production in research as not only are we asking our community to participate in research, we are also asking them to determine what that research should be.
We know that sleep is so important to wellbeing and mental resilience.
We know that gambling harms challenge both of these things.
We intuitively know they are connected, that one impacts the other, but what we don’t know is where people impacted by gambling harms feel there is a connection which needs exploring further.
What is it about sleep which impacts gambling harms?
What is it about gambling harms which impacts sleep?
How can knowing more about one help us know more about the other?
And… how can addressing one help address the other?
Rather than starting with assumptions we are starting with inquisitiveness.
What do YOU think are the questions we need to find answer to.
What should we ALL want to know more about regarding the interplay between these two conditions.
As we said, a survey with a difference.
If you would like to help us shape where this research goes to then please take 10 minutes to fill in the survey.
It, and several different accessible format guides, can be accessed on the research team website
Help us redefine how research happens.