Diverse Discussion in Public Deliberation on Cancer Drug Funding

Abstract

Structured deliberations among members of the public are increasingly viewed as useful inputs to health policy decisions that also rely on scientific evidence and expertise. Such deliberations typically aim for discussions that explore a diversity of ideas and perspectives. However, the concept of a diverse discussion has not been thoroughly examined and methods for measuring the extent to which a discussion actually was diverse are lacking. In this article, we develop a theoretical account of diverse discussion and propose a method for operationalizing it, which we illustrate by means of an analysis of transcripts from public deliberations on cancer drug funding in Canada.