The Cochrane Consumer Network Executive

The Consumer Network Executive was set up in 1995 to provide leadership for the 2,500 and growing, international community of consumers (patients, carers  and the public) who help produce and share Cochrane evidence. Members of the Consumer Executive are drawn from the Cochrane Consumer Network. The Cochrane Consumer Engagement Manager is part of the Cochrane Central Executive team and supports and promotes consumer involvement in Cochrane. 

Vision, Mission and Objectives

Vision

Cochrane’s Consumer Executive’s vision is for a global community of healthcare consumers united by their search for high quality, unbiased information about health conditions and treatment, and who can contribute meaningfully throughout the process of production and dissemination of research.

Mission

Cochrane’s Consumer Network Executive’s mission is to advocate for, and support, consumer involvement and engagement in the Cochrane and global evidence community, and to represent the priorities and concerns of Cochrane consumers.

Objectives

Cochrane's Consumer Network Executive contributes to Cochrane’s work by:

  1. Working with Cochrane’s Consumer Engagement Manager to achieve annual goals of consumer engagement and involvement, in line with Cochrane’s mission and vision.
     
  2. Sharing experience, providing guidance, and supporting and promoting consumer involvement and engagement in protocols and systematic reviews for Cochrane groups and entities.
     
  3. Advocating for evidence that is produced, presented and made available in a way that is useful, accessible and of high-quality to consumers making informed healthcare decisions.
     
  4. Increasing the awareness of Cochrane reviews among people globally.
     
  5. Identifying and sharing trends within the consumer healthcare community and within specific communities of interest.
     
  6. Identifying collective Cochrane consumer concerns and issues and bringing them forward.
     

Consumer Network Executive

To contact all members of the Consumers' Executive, please email consumers@cochrane.org.

 

Jack Nunn (Co-Chair)

Jack has been working to support the public and researchers to work together for over 15 years. In his early twenties, Jack’s partner died from sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), and it was this experience which led him into the world of research, involvement and advocacy. Jack’s passion is in creating and evaluating equitable, inclusive and ethical ways for people to get involved in all aspects of research and science. In 2022 he was awarded a PhD in public health, exploring genomics research and involving people. Jack is the Director and founder of the charity Science for All, which works to involve everyone in shaping the future of human knowledge. He volunteers his time as member of the 'Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT)' Steering Committee and Co-Chair of Citizen Science and Open Science Community of Practice. He is a member of an Australian Federal Government Advisory Group which advises on improving involvement in health and medical research. He is also a member of the ‘Evidence Synthesis Taxonomy Initiative’ Advisory Board, and of the working group for the Australian Genomics project ‘Involve Australia’.

Helen Bulbeck (Co-Chair)

Helen has experienced cancer from a caregiver and patient perspective. This 360 degree view means that she is well placed to understand the perspectives of patients, carers and health care professionals and is skilled in patient and public involvement advocacy. Her roles in brainstrust, a national brain cancer charity and as a consumer representative across organisations, are as a disseminator of information and the provision of a network and community, so that she can provide advice on achieving effective consumer involvement and creating a voice.  Helen’s key drivers are the patients, their caregivers and healthcare professionals, with whom she interacts daily. Her ethos of 'none of us is as smart as all of us' is a core value for her. Elemental to Helen’s work is high performance coaching and shared decision making. When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves. The coaching relationship enables us to face these challenges, so that we learn how to develop resilience and utilise resources, becoming true co-pilots in our care.

Ndi Euphrasia Ebai-Atuh

Euphrasia heads Cameroon Consumer Service Organisation, a national network of consumers striving to make informed choices about their basic services. She joined Cochrane in 2017 as a result of a quest to make evidence informed decisions about her dental health challenge, as well as connect her consumer network to the global evidence-informed decision making ecosystem. She is passionate about capacity development for consumers in resource limited settings, so as to ensure their meaningful engagement in evidence ecosystems. Her interest in joining the Cochrane Consumer Network lies in her expectation to amplify consumer's voices in advocating for an effective mechanism to identify and provide the needed support (skills, frameworks and systems) for consumers within global, continental and national evidence ecosystems.

Ana Beatriz Pizarro Nule

Bio coming soon.

Jonathan Fuchs

Jonathan has over 40 years of experience in health services delivery managing complex healthcare organizations. Most recently he serves on the Board for a company that promotes the secure use and interoperability of healthcare data for patients and providers.  His particular interest has been in improving the quality of care, understanding changing health care dynamics, and processes and their impact on patient care. He has experience in the evaluation of quality of care activities, value based healthcare, consumer representation, and the impact of services on the cost of care.  He has authored numerous articles on the accreditation and the quality of care, social determinants of health and access of care. Over the past 10 years, he has served on numerous Cochrane review panels as a consumer representative.

Danielle Pollock

Danielle is a lived experience stillbirth researcher, methodologists in evidence synthesis, mum to three, and wife living in Adelaide, Australia. She has been an advocate for the inclusion of patients within research since the loss of her daughter, Sofia, to stillbirth in 2014. She completed a PhD where she explored stillbirth stigma, and identified that over half of bereaved mothers faced stigmatising attitudes and beliefs. However, she also highlighted bereaved parents as advocates in changing the ingrained and fatalistic attitudes towards stillbirth held by clinicians, researchers, and government organisations. She is a strong believer that patients change healthcare systems, and their involvement only strengthens understanding. Danielle is currently a research fellow in evidence-based health care and have continued her patient advocacy.

Brian Duncan

Brian has over 35 years experience working in the public sector at the Executive level providing behavioral health, intellectual disability, substance use disorder and aging services. Brian has been a Cochrane member for six years, including experience with Cochrane Crowd, Cochrane Engage, peer reviews, Plain Language Summaries, the Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership, and Cochrane's Plain Language Summary guidelines for authors. Brian aims to contribute by offering expertise in how to best provide and communicate healthcare information. He believes this is best accomplished through access to plain language guides supplemented by decision aids to help guide individuals through a rational decision-making process in concert with the healthcare providers that is respectful of their choices and preferences.