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ID: HR19-1437

Presenting author: Jeanette Bowles

Presenting author biography:

Jeanette Bowles is a T32 postdoctoral scholar at the University of California San Diego, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health. She has ample experience in various capacities of harm reduction practice, teaching, and research throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

Defining Peers in Peer-Collaborated Academic Research

Jeanette Bowles, Karla Wagner, Maria Luisa Mittal, Elizabeth Copulsky, Peter Davidson

Some approaches to conducting community-engaged academic drug use research seek to enhance fairness and representation by incorporating “peers” into the research process. However, defining “peers” is variable, and individuals from active use to sustained recovery, might be considered “peers.” For this paper, we aimed to unpack the concept of “peers” in peer-collaborated drug use research. We theorize that certain drug users are more palatable for some researchers and institutions, but aren’t necessarily those most impacted by research undertakings and implications. In Southern California, USA, our research team collaborated on two federally-funded studies. In implementing these studies, we collaborated with peers through our sampling methods, which also led to the pursuit of hiring a participant who was especially adept at recruitment. Through this process our team engaged in critical discourse regarding how peers are defined within peer-collaborated research. This paper is a critique and analysis of that discourse. We unpacked the concept of “peers” according to various disciplines. We assessed that some drug users, especially those abstinent from drug use, might be more palatable in academic and political spaces. Meanwhile, persons experiencing chaotic drug using patterns tended to experience legal and logistical barriers that preclude engagement in the legal economy and created a structure in which it is difficult to formally engage them in the conduct of research that impacts them most. Persons who are qualified for inclusion in drug use studies may be excluded from formally working on those same studies due to legal and logistical constraints. In the spirit of “nothing about us without us,” we suggest that mechanisms should be developed to minimize those barriers and give participation precedence to these “peers” in peer-collaborated research. Researchers should be aware of the various constructions of “peers,” and consider the implications of how various “peer roles” can influence research findings.