The exercise began on August 19 through a publicly accessible platform where citizens can participate to draft their questions. The stages in which it will take place are as follows:

• From August 19 to September 30, 2019. Public Consultation: generate a series of questions prepared by society in general in order to be investigated in a scientific way. The capture of user doubts is done through a website available to seek mass participation in proposals during this first stage.

• November 1 to 30, 2019. Delphi: is a structured agreement technique that is based on argumentation among experts through an interactive process. It seeks to be able to prioritize the questions collected in the first stage, reducing the amount of information, selecting those that meet the requirements and evaluating the most feasible ones to be investigated.

• From 20 to 24 January 2020. Nominal group: reduction and prioritization of the questions obtained in the previous stage, through a participatory workshop. It is at this stage that the official selection of the 51 questions is carried out.

• During April 2020. Launch of results: the return and dissemination of results is made through a booklet, informational material (triptychs) and its digital version through the various digital platforms.

The Director of Research of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, Rómulo Fuentes, mentions that the advancement of science proposes new challenges and discoveries focused on the problems and challenges of health, this is due to the environment in which people develop and how their adaptation is rapidly evolving in relation to the resources that are provided to society. In an interview for Mega Noticias, he also adds that the health sector in Chile is targeting the disease control parameters established by the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

He also highlighted the relevance of the 51 Priority Questions of Health Research project to generate strategies and diagnoses through the choice and decision of the public to develop relevant questions in the area of public health.

The structure of the project aims to collect information from a variety of situations of the different social groups, as well as their particular living conditions.

Once inside the portal, the form is filled out and the question that can be answered through research and scientific method is proposed (i.e. collecting data, experimenting and verifying). The important thing is to enter topics and group them by specific area and topic.

The end result is expected to be the creation of a document that could be included at the local, regional and central government levels to include scholarships, funding of research, the establishment of an institutional agenda to give preference to initiatives and funds for research applied to health. Generate projects and public policies that may be spread throughout the country.

Another important fact to note is that the questions that are entered to the portal will be completely anonymous.

Learn about the full interview here: https://youtu.be/nj3neuGsdcg?t=1070

You can also participate in the project through the following link: http://www.51preguntas.med.uchile.cl