Advancing health equity in cancer care through collaborative research agenda development: a provincial workshop guided by patient-oriented research in Alberta, Canada

Health inequities in cancer care persist, indicating that advancing equity requires not only understanding inequities but also transforming how cancer research is developed and conducted. Although equity-oriented and community-engaged approaches have advanced important principles for research, there is limited understanding of the conditions and processes required to translate these principles into practice within cancer care systems, including how research agendas can be collaboratively developed to reflect community and health system needs. This Perspective describes the co-design and implementation of a provincial Health Equity Workshop in Alberta, Canada, as a practice-based example of how a cancer care system operationalized Patient-Oriented Research principles to support equity-oriented research agenda development. Guided by Patient-Oriented Research and informed by the Health Equity Implementation Framework, the initiative involved a twelve-member working group comprising people with lived experience of cancer, representatives of community organizations, health system leaders, and researchers who co-designed and facilitated a two-day workshop involving 43 participants. Reflections from the initiative highlighted relational, organizational, and practical conditions that shaped equity-oriented engagement, including trust-building, shared leadership, compensation and resource supports, institutional commitment, and attention to system-level barriers affecting participation. The workshop demonstrated how co-design can embed equity from the earliest stages of research agenda development by bringing together diverse forms of expertise to shape what research is needed and how it should be conducted. This Perspective offers practical insights for researchers, health systems, and community partners seeking to advance equitable cancer research and care.