Rae Thomas

Rae Thomas is a Professor at the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice (CREBP) within the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at Bond University, Australia. She is a leading researcher in deliberative democracy methods applied to health policy decision-making, with a particular focus on community juries.

Her research interests span Public Health Policy, Evidence-Based Medicine, Community Engagement, Health Technology Assessment, and Deliberative Democracy. Dr. Thomas has made significant contributions to methodological rigor in public engagement processes, developing the CJCheck framework through a Delphi process with researchers and policy advisors.

Her publication record shows consistent focus on community jury methodology and applications, with recent work analyzing reporting standards across 38 studies published between 1996-2015. Her research demonstrates that current publications inadequately report methodological details, with no study fully describing all 17 checklist items identified as essential by experts.

• Developed CJCheck reporting standards for community jury methodology
• Conducted research on community juries for PSA screening decisions
• Investigated public perspectives on genetic testing and biobanking
• Examined deliberative methods for health technology assessment

Dr. Thomas has secured competitive research funding, including from the NHMRC Screening and Test Evaluation Program. Her work bridges academic research and practical health policy development, providing evidence on how to effectively incorporate community perspectives into complex health decisions through structured deliberative processes.