Lived Experience

Lived experience is an individual’s direct, first-hand experience from living through a specific phenomenon.

We argue that it is necessary to keep the definition generic in order to be inclusive of the many different forms that lived experience can take. 

The important difference between ‘lived experience’ and ‘practitioner experience’ becomes evident in the contexts of science and policy where phenomena are investigated and decisions are made by people who do not have ‘lived’ experience of a phenomenon. For example, a researcher may have experience with and knowledge about mental health disorders from studying them. However, this is very different from having ‘lived’ experience of a mental health disorder. An individual’s ‘lived experience’ adds an important perspective and can therefore help to understand and/or explain a given phenomenon.

We want to point out the main elements of lived experience (LE) that make it so valuable for public health research:

Lived Experience…

• is direct, first-hand experience; it is authentic (source)

• is associated with knowledge, insights, and understanding of a phenomena in a specific place and through the passing of time (source)

• is individual; however, LE can also be shared/typical (source)

• can be documented and observed through a variety of methods

• has no age limit; children to adults should be taken into consideration

• should be inclusive of marginalised communities