Ensuring Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (herein respectfully Indigenous) people have a strong voice in self-determining research that is important to their families and communities is a national priority. However, despite researchers’ goodwill, truly co-designed studies with Indigenous community members are scant.

The Strong Families Study (SFS) aims to partner with health services and communities across Queensland to co-design a longitudinal observational study with Indigenous parents and their children.

This co-design project has been undertaken in three phases. Phases 1 and 2: Focus groups were held across Queensland as a significant foundational body of work. Identified themes have been returned to community groups who participated in Delphi studies (Phase 2) at each site to prioritise these to the top 10 research areas for their community. Phase 3: Building on the established relationships with each community, the research team invited community and staff members to join the Indigenous Steering Committee. The committee and the research team have commenced the cohort study co-design, with an in-person workshop in Meanjin (Brisbane) in May 2024. The workshop focused on the prioritisation of key themes and potential measures to be used.

Phases 1 and 2 were completed with 392 participants from >10 Queensland regions. The top priorities identified included social and emotional wellbeing, parenting and families, children’s health services and interventions, chronic disease, social/cultural determinants of health. In Phase 3, the Steering Committee have reflected upon >100 different measures to determine those that are designed for Indigenous communities, use culturally appropriate language and are not overly burdensome for participants.

A co-design approach using card-sorting activities were used successfully to prioritise health research themes and measures to help design the longitudinal cohort study to recruit Queensland families. The newly designed SFS and lessons learned throughout the foundational work and co-design workshop will be presented.