The Patients Engaged in Education and Research (PEER) Group
The PEER Group is a group of patients and care partners who work with Dr. Nasia Safdar and her colleagues in the Department of Infectious Disease to improve research by incorporating the patient perspective at all stages. PEER Group members, who are called Safdar Research Partners, have lived experience with healthcare-associated infections, either as a patient themselves or a caregiver for someone else who had an infection. Research Partners work with researchers by…
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- Providing insight into patient priorities in research
- Participating in discussions with researchers to improve research ideas
- Piloting patient-facing research materials such as interview questions, recruitment materials, and communication scripts
- Assisting in dissemination of research findings
PEER Projects
The Wisconsin Network for Research Support (WINRS) published an article detailing the PEER Group’s initial objectives and research contributions in 2017.
In 2018, Dr. Nasia Safdar and colleagues collaborated with other researchers to develop the Engaging Veterans in Research Toolkit. This resource is freely available for researchers who are interested in engaging Veteran stakeholders in their work.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the PEER Group has continued to meet virtually. As we find ways to do so engagingly and effectively, our priority remains infection prevention, expanding this focus to include patient priorities related to COVID-19. PEER Group members are also exploring graphic medicine as a tool to share the patient perspective.
Publications
Keating JA, Shaughnessy C, Baubie K, Kates AE, Putman-Buehler N, Watson L, Dominguez N, Watson K, Cook DB, Rabago D, Suen G, Gangnon R, Safdar N. Characterising the gut microbiome in veterans with Gulf War Illness: a protocol for a longitudinal, prospective cohort study. BMJ Open. 2019 Aug 19;9(8):e031114. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031114. PMID: 31431446; PMCID: PMC6707676.
Kaiser BL, Thomas GR, Keating JA, Brys N, Knobloch MJ, Safdar N. What works for engaging lay stakeholders: Advice from a patient and caregiver group. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2019 Aug;40(8):948-949. doi: 10.1017/ice.2019.147. Epub 2019 Jun 17. PMID: 31203821.
Brys N, Keating JA, Knobloch MJ, Safdar N. Engaging patients in health care epidemiology research: A case example. Am J Infect Control. 2019 Feb;47(2):139-143. doi: 10.1016/j.ajic.2018.08.013. Epub 2018 Oct 10. PMID: 30314749.
The PEER Group was established in 2016 through a research project funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Support for the development of this group was also provided by the Wisconsin Network for Research Support (WINRS). Continued support is provided through the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research Community-Academic Partnerships Program (ICTR-CAP).
The project described was supported by the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, through the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), grant UL1TR002373. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
