Education & Training

Consumers are asked to sit on guideline panels, research advisory committees, grant review boards and priority-setting exercises far more often than they are offered help to prepare for those roles. CUE's education programme exists to close that gap. Our training is built on a simple premise: the experience of living with an illness, caring for a family member, or navigating the health system is genuine expertise, and it becomes far more powerful when it is paired with a working understanding of how health research is designed, analysed, reported and used.

Everything we offer is free, open to consumer advocates and the organizations that support them, and written in plain language. No research background is assumed and no credential is required. Whether you are new to evidence-based healthcare or have been reviewing studies for years, there is a course or session suited to where you are now.

Free Online Courses

Our flagship course, Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare: A Foundation for Action, takes participants through the core ideas that underpin trustworthy health information. Developed by Kay Dickersin and Musa Mayer, the course is delivered in short, self-paced modules so that participants can work through the material around their own commitments. Topics include:

• How different study designs answer different questions, and what each design can and cannot tell us
• Bias, confounding and the reasons a single study should rarely change practice on its own
• Reading a research abstract critically, including the difference between statistical significance and clinical importance
• Systematic reviews and meta-analysis: what they are, why they matter, and how to judge whether one was done well
• Absolute versus relative risk, and why the framing of a benefit or harm changes how we feel about it
• How evidence is graded, and what certainty of evidence means in a guideline recommendation
• Plain-language summaries and shared decision-making tools, and how to tell a good one from a poor one

Participants who complete the course routinely tell us that the biggest change is not memorising terminology but gaining the confidence to ask a direct question in a meeting — about how a study was randomised, who was excluded, or whether the outcome measured is the one that matters to patients. That shift from spectator to participant is the point of the training.

Workshops, Webinars and Peer Learning

Alongside the online courses, CUE runs shorter sessions on specific skills: preparing a written or verbal comment for a public consultation, understanding a forest plot, appraising a diagnostic accuracy study, and working effectively as the only consumer voice on a committee. Webinars are recorded where speakers agree, so members who cannot attend live can catch up afterwards. Sessions are kept small where discussion is the main value, and we deliberately mix newer advocates with experienced ones so that questions can be asked without embarrassment.

We also host peer learning exchanges in which member organizations describe what has worked for them — how they brief a consumer representative before a meeting, how they debrief afterwards, and how they feed what they learned back to their constituency. Much of the most useful knowledge in this field sits with organizations that have already done the work, and our role is often simply to put people in touch with each other.

Learning Beside Researchers and Clinicians

A good deal of CUE's training is delivered jointly with academic and professional partners. Learning in the same room as researchers, clinicians, methodologists and information specialists does two things at once: it gives consumers a clearer view of how research decisions are actually made, and it gives researchers a clearer view of which questions matter to the people their work is meant to serve. Shared vocabulary is the practical outcome. When everyone understands what a confidence interval is, conversations move quickly past definitional confusion and on to the substance — trade-offs, uncertainty and patient preference.

These sessions also prepare consumers for the practical realities of committee work: reading a dense pack of papers in advance, understanding a conflict-of-interest declaration, knowing when to ask for a topic to be reframed in plain language, and being clear about time commitment, expenses and compensation before agreeing to take part.

Supporting Member Organizations

Consumer organizations often want to build evidence skills internally rather than send individuals away for training. We can help by advising on how to structure an internal briefing session, suggesting reading and resources suited to a particular condition area, and connecting organizations with experienced consumer reviewers who can mentor a first-time representative. Organizations considering applying for CUE membership will find the training programme a useful way to bring newer staff and volunteer leaders up to speed on the concepts that come up again and again in research partnerships.

Getting Started

Begin with the free online course if you are new to the subject, or browse the sessions listed under Conferences and Events if you are looking for something shorter and more specific. If you are unsure which route suits you, describe your background and what you would like to be able to do, and we will point you to the most relevant starting place. Advocates who complete training are encouraged to stay involved — by mentoring someone newer, joining a review panel, or helping shape the next round of courses.