Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Jul 5;18(1):834.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5765-2.

Participant, peer and PEEP: considerations and strategies for involving people who have used illicit substances as assistants and advisors in research

Alissa M Greer  1   2 , Ashraf Amlani  3 , Bernadette Pauly  4 , Charlene Burmeister  3 , Jane A Buxton  5   3
Affiliations

Participant, peer and PEEP: considerations and strategies for involving people who have used illicit substances as assistants and advisors in research

Alissa M Greer et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The Peer Engagement and Evaluation Project (PEEP) aimed to engage, inspire, and learn from peer leaders who represented voices of people who use or have used illicit substances, through active membership on the 'Peeps' research team. Given the lack of critical reflection in the literature about the process of engaging people who have used illicit substances in participatory and community-based research processes, we provide a detailed description of how one project, PEEP, engaged peers in a province-wide research project.

Methods: By applying the Peer Engagement Process Evaluation Framework, we critically analyze the intentions, strategies employed, and outcomes of the process utilized in the PEEP project and discuss the implications for capacity building and empowerment among the peer researchers. This process included: the formation of the PEEP team; capacity building; peer-facilitated data collection; collaborative data analysis; and, strengths-based approach to outputs.

Results: Several lessons were learned from applying the Peer Engagement Process Evaluation Framework to the PEEP process. These lessons fall into themes of: recruiting and hiring; fair compensation; role and project expectations; communication; connection and collaboration; mentorship; and peer-facilitated research.

Conclusion: This project offers a unique approach to engaging people who use illicit substances and demonstrates how participation is an important endeavor that improves the relevance, capacity, and quality of research. Lessons learned in this project can be applied to future community-based research with people who use illicit substances or other marginalized groups and/or participatory settings.

Keywords: Community-based participatory research; Drug use; Participation; Peer engagement; Qualitative research; Research methods.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval for the Peer Engagement and Evaluation Project was obtained from the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria ethics boards. All PEEP team members were co-investigators on the ethics applications. Research participants gave informed verbal consent after being read the consent form and had a hard copy to keep of the study details and who to contact with concerns. Written consent was not appropriate given that participants were from a vulnerable population and would be discussing substance use, a criminalized and stigmatized behavior in Canada.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Organizational structure and make-up of the BC Harm Reduction Services and Strategies Committee and the Peer Engagement and Evaluation project
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Peer Engagement and Evaluation Project process
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Barratt MJ, Lenton S. Beyond recruitment? Participatory online research with people who use drugs. Int J Internet Res Ethics. 2010;3:69–86.
    1. Funk A, Van Borek N, Taylor D, Grewal P, Tzemis D, Buxton JA. Climbing the “ladder of participation”: engaging experiential youth in a participatory research project. Can J Public Health. 2012;103:e228–e292. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Leung MW, Yen IH, Minkler M. Community based participatory research: a promising approach for increasing epidemiology’s relevance in the 21st century. Int J Epidemiol. 2004;33:499–506. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyh010. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Salmon A, Browne AJ, Pederson A. ‘Now we call it research’: participatory health research involving marginalized women who use drugs. Nurs Inq. 2010;17:336–345. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1800.2010.00507.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wallerstein NB, Duran B. Using community-based participatory research to address health disparities. Health Promot Pract. 2006;7:312–323. doi: 10.1177/1524839906289376. - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms