There are different levels of health policy decision making (local, national, European) and healthcare priority setting requiring different channels of participation. At a local level, the integration of public opinions is more feasible, due to community based non-governmental organizations which advocate for citizens’ health needs and may be beneficial in consulting local committees and authorities in healthcare priorities setting. At a national level, more solid and official methods (e.g. legislation establishing patient participation) are needed in order to incorporate public views and preferences in health policy decision making. To achieve this goal, academic research would be more community oriented without losing its credibility. An important prerequisite is to increase the productive interaction between researchers, policy makers, advocates and general public. Community based research may facilitate this process. Moreover, it is imperative for researchers to present evidence in a way that can be exploited by policy makers and provide continuing support to every step of the integration procedure. On the other hand, policy makers should develop official mechanisms and strategies so as to ensure that the role of other key stakeholders (e.g. general public, researchers) is not just consultative but impacts the development, implementation and evaluation of health policies, programs and services.