Toward Veteran-Centered Research: A Veteran-Focused Community Engagement Project

Although it is widely acknowledged that consumer engagement in healthcare research is a promising pathway to actionable patient-centered findings, there remains some ambiguity regarding effective patient-centered engagement strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this U.S.-based multi-state, veteran-focused community engagement project was to create a platform from which U.S. veterans could dialogue and identify their (1) research priorities; (2) barriers to research partnerships and participation; (3) recommendations for engaging other veterans in the research enterprise; and (4) preferences for how they would like to receive research findings. A total of 283 veterans and 101 community stakeholders participated across 54 dialogue sessions, or Think Tanks, held in six states with the largest veteran populations: California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. Each Think Tank session, guided by focus group methodology, was led by a local veteran with strong ties to the veteran community. A local researcher from the project team recorded field notes, which were analyzed by the lead research team using open and axial coding. Based on veterans’ recommendations, a list of veteran-centered research priorities is presented. Also presented are checklists, based on veterans’ recommendations, which can be used to guide research teams in the use of specific strategies for engaging veterans in research and effectively disseminating findings to the veteran community.