The development and realization of a research-through-design knowledge translation approach in a palliative care context

Abstract Due to poor access, health research rarely engages with stakeholders outside of academia. As a result, it has become imperative to find strategic and creative ways to engage the public. We undertook a research-through-design knowledge translation approach to disseminate our research about transitioning home at end of life (EOL) and generate reciprocal insights from a broader community. Undertaking a co-creation process, our research, clinical, and patient team partnered with an innovation design team to present a design installation conveying a sense of medicalization of home at the EOL at the Toronto-based DesignTO festival in January 2020. The installation incorporated research participants’ experiences while encouraging attendees to share wishes and/or worries about transitioning from hospital to home at EOL. Fifteen hundred visitors attended our section of the event and 100 attendees interacted with our installation. We interpreted this process as a research-to-public feedback loop, whereby attendees had the opportunity to learn about EOL research and contribute to it with tangible outcomes that can support future research. Overall, making use of research-through-design resulted in a research-to-public feedback approach that can be trialled in various contexts outside EOL.