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Public and patient participation in health has evolved considerably since the World Health Organization’s Alma Ata Declaration asserted people’s “right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care” in 1978. 1 The expansion of neoliberal policies in the 1980s, and mounting disillusionment with the “democratic deficit” observed in the 1990s, prompted social movements across the world to demand greater public accountability and the inclusion of lay citizens in decision-making processes. 2 At the same time, governments in several countries began to look for strategies that could bring them closer to the people. One of the methods used to promote dialogue between the state and ordinary people was the creation of institutional participatory spaces in which lay citizens could come together with policy-makers, managers, professionals, and other members of …