Executive Summary of Deliberative Methods Demonstration Now Available

Initial findings from AHRQ’s Community Forum Deliberative Methods Demonstration are now available in an executive summary posted on the Agency’s Effective Health Care Program Web site. The primary goals of the demonstration were to inform AHRQ research programs on public views regarding the use of evidence in health care decisionmaking and to guide future work in deliberative methods by formally evaluating its effectiveness and identifying feasible choices among approaches to public deliberation. Fielded in 2012, the Community Forum Deliberative Methods Demonstration convened 76 groups—with more than 1,000 participants—in four locations across the country. The groups reflected the diversity of local populations in terms of racial, ethnic, and sociodemographic background. Participants were randomly assigned to four different types of deliberative methods or a reading-materials-only control. The deliberative methods included an exclusively online method and in-person approaches that varied in length and intensity.