Patients benefit from advocating for themselves

When discussing the pros and cons of new drugs, new treatments, new studies or any new medical development with government regulators, people with different relationships to the health concern at hand often make up an advocacy group—including doctors, healthcare administrators, researchers, governmental representatives and patient caretakers and family members.

Increasingly, says the Wall Street Journal, those groups include patients themselves.

Some of those patients are living longer, thanks to previous advocacy on their behalf, and are able and want to make their own voices heard in those conversations.

Those patient voices can be making different points than those of their parents or caretakers. According to one parent advocate, patients sometimes focus on advocating for accessibility rights, while their parents just want them to stay safe.

Check out the Wall Street Journal to see how these groups are taking different approaches to including patients themselves in patient advocacy groups and how issues championed by patients themselves could change the healthcare landscape.