Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
An official website of the United States government
Summary: Veteran Voices in Research showcases the people and programs that foster Veteran engagement and demonstrates how Veteran collaborators improve the quality, relevance, and impact of VA research. This issue, “Veteran-speak,” describes an early example of Veteran engagement growing to impact research on a national scale.
Dryhootch is a Milwaukee organization formed by Vietnam and Cold War-era Veterans to support post-9/11 Veterans who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan: one generation of Veterans helping the next.
Their community director, Army Veteran Mark Flower, is a co-author of more than 35 research articles, and Dr. Jeff Whittle, a primary care physician at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center, wouldn’t have it any other way.
The two met while renovating space for a new chapter of Dryhootch, where Flower learned Whittle was a doctor at the VA, and their 20-year relationship began. Since that meeting, Flower has worked with VA researchers around the country. His commitment to peer support and communities, inspired by past struggles with addiction and the loss of several friends to suicide, has led him to participate in several Veteran engagement groups and ongoing projects.
Flower is currently on a Veteran engagement board aimed at understanding factors that may lead a Veteran to take their life, and he’s a staff member at the Growing Rural Outreach through Veteran Engagement (GROVE) Center. He said one of his most valuable contributions is helping researchers learn ‘Veteran-speak’.
"I try to get researchers to start really thinking about the culture,” Flower said. “Understand the way Veterans talk. What might offend some people is our way of coping with things we go through, to help us live a halfway decent life."
Whittle doubled down on the importance of researchers engaging with Veterans.
"I don't have formal training engaging with community members, including Veterans," he said, "but I've definitely been engaging with Veterans for years, from my dad and his generation of Veterans to Vietnam Veterans just a few years older than me, and the whole gamut of Veterans who I work with in health and healthcare."
In his work, Dr. Whittle began to apply the principles of what is broadly known as community-based participatory research, and to explore the potential of peer support to improve Veteran health outcomes.
Whittle said he still remembers a tip some American Legion Veterans gave him as they were designing a 2006 study of peer-supported blood pressure management. They told him that male Veterans tended to focus on stories, while their wives were attuned to the health issues and daily habits he was asking about. He realized that while he often met spouses Veteran patients to their appointments, he’d never thought to build this into his research.
The Veterans’ recommendations helped convince other Veterans to participate in research, and Whittle built the process of listening and integrating their lived experience into the design of his studies. This both improved the quality of his research and created relationships that would allow him to return to them as a trusted colleague who had Veterans’ concerns and interests in mind.
When Whittle had secured funding for his next study, he went back to the American Legion with a simple question for the Veterans:
“How should we do it this time?”
(From left) Mark Flower, Army Veteran; Ramona Tenorio, president of Broader Impact; Zeno Franco, a staff psychologist at the Milwaukee VA; and Jeff Whittle, primary care physician at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center, set up a booth for Veteran support organization, Dryhootch, at a cultural fair hosted by the Medical College of Wisconsin.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.
