ABSTRACT
Engaging young people in research is a promising approach to tackling issues like chronic disease prevention. Our involvement as youth advisors provided valuable experiences, including being at the forefront of change and learning to work within a research team. Furthermore, our experience provides greater insight and learnings for future youth engagement in research.
We are a group of 16 diverse young people from New South Wales, Australia, who are passionate about youth health. In 2021 and 2022, we formed the Health Advisory Panel for Youth at the University of Sydney (HAPYUS, pronounced 'Happy Us') working with researchers on projects to prevent chronic diseases in young people. We brainstormed health issues from our own experiences and other research and summarised them into the top three youth health concerns. From these, we helped develop and test programs to support healthy behaviours in young people. We used scientific and public events to present our findings. Finally, we presented our results in a research paper and through traditional and social media. One of the most rewarding experiences was the opportunity to be part of all stages of the research process of improving youth health especially because COVID-19 and social media changed the way we need to think about youth mental and physical health. We also learned how to work together amongst ourselves as young people and within a research team. We hope that other young people can learn from our experiences and feel inspired to become active contributors in projects for meaningful change in the lives of young people.
