Blog

PCORI-Funded Projects Help Take on the Opioid Crisis

Published: 
December 22, 2017
Blog Topics: 
Research
More than 42,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2016, a 28 percent increase from 2015. This death toll contributed to a decline in the overall life expectancy in the United States for the second year in a row, according to statistics released December 21 by the Centers for Disease Control...
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Researchers and Stakeholders Describe Engagement Challenges and Strategies

Published: 
December 15, 2017
Author(s): 
Andrea Heckert, PhD, MPH,
Lisa Stewart, MA
Blog Topics: 
Research
Engagement Blogs
When researchers partner with patients and other stakeholders in patient-centered research, the relationships can present challenges and opportunities for growth on both sides. PCORI hosted a webinar this month that addressed these challenges and presented strategies to help researchers and...
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Three Questions for Lawrence Becker

Published: 
December 5, 2017
Author(s): 
Lawrence Becker
Blog Topics: 
Research
Guest Blogs
The research PCORI funds aims to help patients and those who care for them make better-informed decisions about real-world health and healthcare issues they face. Many of those decisions involve patients, their families, and their clinicians. But other stakeholders also must consider various care...
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Empowering People with COPD to Better Manage Their Symptoms

Published: 
November 27, 2017
Author(s): 
Hanan Aboumatar, MD, MPH
Blog Topics: 
Research
Guest Blogs
As I talked with an elderly patient struggling with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), she recounted having been startled awake a few days earlier. Her daughter was bending over her bed close to her face, making sure she hadn’t stopped breathing. This wasn’t the first time it had...
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Recapping Our Annual Meeting: Delivering Results, Informing Choices

Published: 
November 14, 2017
Author(s): 
Joe V. Selby, MD, MPH
Blog Topics: 
Research
Executive Director's Blog
I often speak about PCORI’s commitment to involving people from across the healthcare community in our work as a way to make the studies we fund more useful and relevant to patients and those who care for them. That commitment was fully apparent at our third Annual Meeting , which ended just over a...
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Pathways to Partnership: Helping Patients and Researchers Communicate

Published: 
October 30, 2017
Author(s): 
Bill Shuttleworth, PhD,
Pari Noskin, MSW
Blog Topics: 
Research
Guest Blogs
Sometimes, despite our best intentions, researchers aren’t aware of the needs and wants of the patients who volunteer to let us study their lives. And many of those people might feel too intimidated by the alphabet soup of degrees that follow their doctors’ names to speak up when they have a...
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Innovative Treatment Options for Underserved, Hard-to-Reach Populations

Published: 
October 27, 2017
Author(s): 
Annette Crisanti, PhD
Blog Topics: 
Research
Engagement Blogs
Guest Blogs
In December 2013, a participant in a study I was conducting arrived for what would be her 11th group therapy session for her substance abuse. She looked different this time: she was wearing lipstick, and she had braids and colorful barrettes in her hair. The woman explained that earlier in the week...
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Diabetes Results That Can Make a Difference

Published: 
October 24, 2017
Author(s): 
April Reese
Blog Topics: 
Engagement Blogs
Guest Blogs
Diabetes runs in my family. Three of my four grandparents had type 2 diabetes, which is where your body doesn’t use insulin properly, and your blood sugar levels get too high. I also have an uncle with type 1, where your body doesn’t make insulin at all. I knew I had multiple risk factors for type...
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Funding the Next Generation of Learning-Health-System Researchers

Published: 
October 23, 2017
Author(s): 
Gopal Khanna, MBA,
Joe V. Selby, MD, MPH
Blog Topics: 
Research
Executive Director's Blog
Guest Blogs
Funding Awards
The healthcare community is finding common ground when it comes to identifying essential elements of a learning health system (LHS). At their core, organizations that apply LHS principles are committed to improving patient care through the generation, adoption, and application of evidence to...
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Building Awareness of Health Research in the Mississippi Delta

Published: 
October 23, 2017
Author(s): 
Freddie White-Johnson, MPPA
Blog Topics: 
Engagement Blogs
Guest Blogs
When I was 17, my father died of lung cancer. At first, when he started coughing up blood, my mother and he thought he had a sore throat and a cold. His treatment of choice: Epsom salts and gargling with warm water. After a year, my mother made him go to a doctor, but it was too late. His cancer...
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