Member Login
Search

Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute Engagement Award

Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Approved for a $100,000 Engagement Award for Setting the Agenda for Patient-Centered Research in Infant and Young-Child Feeding

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine is delighted to share that ABM and Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), a community-based organization that works to normalize breastfeeding by providing resources and networking opportunities for individuals and communities, have received $100,000 funding through Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Awards program*, an initiative of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) entitled, “Setting the agenda for patient-centered research in infant and young-child feeding.”

This is a one-year project to find out what clinical questions in breastfeeding and human lactation are most important to patients and health care team members, and it will culminate with a one-day conference to be held in conjunction with the 27th Annual International Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, September 15-18, 2022.

Our long-term goal is to make breastfeeding easier by finding out what works best to treat common problems. For this project, we plan to bring together families, community members, and health team members to accomplish three goals: 

  1. Choose important research questions that will help families work through challenges and breastfeed as long as they desire. 
  2. Define how families want to measure successful breastfeeding. 
  3. Share these findings so that future research focuses on the questions that matter most to families. 

We plan to connect with families, communities, and health team members in several ways, wrapping up with an in-person meeting in Baltimore, Maryland in September 2022. The meeting will be just before ABM’s international meeting. To engage local parents of color, ABM will partner with ROSE to bring together Black families in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area to learn about what breastfeeding questions and outcomes matter most to them. To complement these perspectives, ABM will develop and share an online survey of families, lactation support providers, and health team members. We’ll share findings from these conversations and surveys at the in-person meeting. 

During the meeting, small groups will brainstorm research questions and ways to measure successful breastfeeding. We will then share the top 10-15 concepts and measures in an online survey to rank the most important areas for future research. 

We will also create a road map for families and community members in planning infant feeding research. Based on our work, we will identify 5 to 7 important topics for future research, as well as 3 to 5 important measures of successful breastfeeding. In the one to two years after the project, we will publish results in the peer-reviewed literature, and we will create a diverse family and community advisory board for ABM to ensure that all families get high-quality breastfeeding care. Long term, ABM will work with our members and community partners to conduct research that will help families make decisions about managing breastfeeding problems.  

We will engage families and health team members through partnerships with MomsRising, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Milk, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. 

This study was reviewed by the UNC-Chapel Hill Institutional Review Board, IRB #22-0024, and is funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, EASCS-22866.

If you have questions or concerns about your rights as a research subject, you may contact the UNC Institutional Review Board at 919-966-3113 or by email to [email protected].

*This stakeholder engagement work is part of a portfolio of projects that PCORI has funded to help develop a community of patients and other stakeholders equipped to participate as partners in comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) and disseminate PCORI-funded study results. Through the Engagement Award Program, PCORI is creating an expansive network of individuals, communities, and organizations interested in and able to participate in, share, and use patient-centered CER.