A National Virtual Peer Support Group for Women Veterans Living with Breast Cancer - Lessons from the Field

Sep 22, 2026

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Within the Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA), peer support specialists (PSSs) have traditionally worked in mental health and behavioral health settings, while PSS-facilitated cancer support groups are less common and underused. This study examined acceptability, feasibility, and perceived benefits of a PSS-facilitated virtual peer support group for women veterans with breast cancer. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed through rapid qualitative methods, identifying domains including shared experiences, peer matching, virtual design, group structure, beneficial topics, and desired outcomes, with findings highlighting specificity and authentic PSS-cancer-experience matching.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Highlights

Public health relevance

Public health significance

Public health implications

Abstract

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Introduction

Project Report A National Virtual Peer Support Group for Women Veterans Living with Breast Cancer: Lessons from the Field Jenny K. Cohen 1,2, *, Kara Zamora-Rogoski 1,3, Caitlin L. McLean 4, Mariam E. Jacob 1,3, *, Evana Mack 1, Haley Moss 5,6 and Aimee Kroll-Desrosiers 7,8 Academic Editor: David Lim Received: 31 March 2026 Revised: 12 June 2026 Accepted: 15 June 2026 Published: 19 June 2026 Copyright: © 2026 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. 1 San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Division of General Internal Medicine, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA; [kara.zamora@va.gov](kara.zamora@va.gov) (K.Z.-R.); [evana.mack@va.gov](evana.mack@va.gov) (E.M.) 2 Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA 3 Northern California Institute for Research and Education (NCIRE), San Francisco, CA 94121, USA 4 Veterans Affairs Sierra Nevada Health Care System, Reno, NV 89502, USA; [caitlin.mclean@va.gov](caitlin.mclean@va.gov) 5 Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Durham, NC 27705, USA; [haley.moss1@va.gov](haley.moss1@va.gov) 6 Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC 27701, USA 7 Department of Health Promotion and Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA; [akroll@umass.edu](akroll@umass.edu) 8 Center for Healthcare Delivery Science, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA 02215, USA * [Correspondence: jenny.cohen@va.gov](Correspondence: jenny.cohen@va.gov) (J.K.C.); [mariamerika.jacob@va.gov](mariamerika.jacob@va.gov) (M.E.J.) Highlights Public health relevance—How does this work relate to a public health issue? • Cancer is one of the top three divers of morbidity and mortality in the US and as such presents a major public health threat that not only impacts the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans each year but also poses a financial and psychosocial threat. Peer support groups are a low-cost potent intervention that has been shown to improve psychosocial wellbeing for individuals going through shared experiences such as cancer. Our work builds the case that for women veterans with breast cancer, virtual peer support groups are a powerful tool for improving this population’s wellbeing. Public health significance—Why is this work of significance to public health? • Peer support is an important aspect of cancer care. Our work illuminates how a virtual platform can be leveraged across a national catchment to offer a low-cost intervention to a geographically disparate and heterogenous group of veterans going through a similar experience to build community, decrease social isolation, and improve wellbeing. Public health implications—What are the key implications or messages for practitioners, policy makers and/or researchers in public health? • Apply lessons learned from the creation of the first ever national VA support group for women veterans with breast cancer to an analogous cohort of patients who maybe distributed across wide geographic swaths and experiencing similar clinical and psychosocial challenges. • Identify the necessary resources and methodologies to develop and implement peerfacilitated cancer support groups for other unique populations of patients undergoing cancer treatment or survivorship surveillance. Abstract Within the Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA), peer support specialists (PSSs) have traditionally worked in mental health and behavioral health settings. PSS-facilitated cancer support groups are less common and underused in this setting. The purpose of this study Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2026, 23, 817 [https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph23060817](https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph23060817) was to understand the acceptability, feasibility, and perceived benefits of a PSS-facilitated peer support group for wo

FAQs

What was the study’s purpose regarding women veterans with breast cancer?

To understand the acceptability, feasibility, and perceived benefits of a PSS-facilitated peer support group for women veterans living with breast cancer.

How were the interview data collected and analyzed?

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with veteran participants and health system leaders, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using rapid qualitative analysis.

Which aspects of the group did participants value most?

Veterans valued sharing experiences and connecting with other women veterans, and preferred a facilitator who was a peer with overlapping lived experience, describing supportive and instrumental coping benefits.

Sep 22, 2026

Upload by Franzy