Angela Hagaman, Co-Director for the East Tennessee State University College of Public Health’s Addiction Science Center, has received a new award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support research focused on the growing role of peer support specialists in health and recovery settings.
The project, titled “Developing an Index of Peer Support Specialist Work Settings and Activities,” was officially awarded on March 19, 2026. Dr. Hagaman serves as principal investigator. Dr. Craig Henderson of Sam Houston State University will serve as co-principal investigator.
“This study builds on previous community based participatory research conducted by the Addiction Science Center team in partnership with peer support specialists in Central Appalachia and across the nation. The final index will address a key barrier to the accurate assessment of peer recovery support service provision and will open the door for high-quality scientific exploration into the effectiveness of peer support,” said Angela Hagaman, Co-PI and Research Assistant Professor in the College of Public Health.
Peer support specialists are individuals with lived experience of substance use or mental health challenges. They play a vital role in recovery-oriented systems of care. Despite their increasing integration into healthcare and community-based settings, there remains limited standardized information about the environments in which they work and the range of activities they perform within these varied settings.
This NIH-funded project aims to address that gap by developing a comprehensive index that categorizes peer support specialists’ work settings and core responsibilities within a social ecological systems framework. The resulting tool will help researchers better understand and evaluate the peer support workforce, ultimately contributing to more effective program design and service delivery.
“The ETSU Addiction Science Center has been nationally recognized for its commitment to community engagement,” said Dr. Randy Wykoff, Dean of the College of Public Health. “This grant will further support their life-saving work in our region and beyond.”
Funded through the NIH’s research portfolio, the award underscores the college’s continued leadership in substance use and behavioral health research, particularly within the Appalachian region.