The People's Review Protocol: planning an innovative study powered by the public

Background: Systematic reviews provide the best quality evidence about the effectiveness of health treatments. However, systematic reviews and the important role they play in healthcare are not well understood beyond the walls of academia and healthcare. The public needs to know more about what systematic reviews are, how they work and why they matter. The public should be able to find, understand and use evidence to support everyday health choices. The People's Review aims to provide an opportunity to members of the public to plan and complete a full systematic review online in a supportive and engaging manner. It will be a learning-by-doing experience to support the public’s understanding of what reviews are, how they are done, why they matter, and how they can be used to support everyday health decisions.Methods: In ThePeople's Review the public will conduct a full systematic review, deciding the review question, planning the review, working on the parts of the review, and deciding how to share the review findings, in a learning-by-doing process. The review will be conducted online in eight stages using Cochrane Crowd, an existing citizen science platform. The team working behind-the-scenes of The People's Review will design, produce, and share learning material to support the public’s understanding at each stage of the review. Discussion: Involving the public in a systematic review online will enable members of the public to understand and use systematic reviews in everyday health choices. It provides the public with a unique ‘learning-by-doing’ opportunity to get to grips with what systematic reviews are and how they are produced. This article describes how we plan to involve the public in The People's Review. It is not a protocol for the systematic review itself –this will be published separately once the project has commenced and the public have decided the review question.