CFReSHC Co-Founders:

Acknowledgements

The CF-SRH Resource Guide has been a five-year intensive project. It could not have been created without the support of our team members, chapter writers, expert consultants, CF clinic teams, website designers, and funders. 

First, we would like to thank Dr. Patricia Walker, who conceived the idea as a CFReSHC project. She has been a strong advocate for patient-centered care, recognizing the value of patient voices, priorities, and expertise on the topic of sexual and reproductive health.

We extend our sincerest gratitude to the original Impact Award team members, who were incredible partners in recruiting writers, leading chapter writing teams, and developing the organization and structure of the Guide. Their dedication, drive, and commitment to improving people with CF’s sexual and reproductive health are greatly appreciated. We thank Georgia Brown, who, as patient lead, expanded the Guide to men’s issues, directed and revised numerous chapters, and helped edit the first iterations of the Guide. We thank and recognize Jennifer Kyle, who has been an incredible patient lead and partner, for expanding the Guide, helping to add the modulator and mental health sections to each chapter, recruiting and leading the chapter teams, and working with the website designer to finalize our website/Guide webpages. 

We would also like to thank our CFReSHC patient-partners, including all the women and men who worked on this guide, either by writing chapters, presenting their work at a Patient Task Force session, attending those sessions to share their experiences and to brainstorm with us, replying to our polls, and engaging with us on social media. The hard work of our chapter writers is especially appreciated; these chapters were not easy to write and required many hours to conceptualize, research, write, attend meetings, and make revisions. 

Our expert consultants and the CF clinic teams took the time to review assigned chapters for accuracy and attend meetings with us to offer constructive feedback. We appreciate their time and feedback to ensure the Guide’s scientific rigor and utility. Two physician assistant students also conducted a referral network project to review and refine the language of the priority questions, enabling patient-centered, provider-patient communication.

We especially thank Dr. Jennifer Taylor-Cousar, MD, for agreeing to disseminate chapters from the Guide (3.0) in her clinic, which has allowed us to understand how best to utilize the Guide in the clinic and serve adult patients. We appreciate the time and interest of all our contributors and partners in ensuring this guide resonates with providers and is valuable to patients.

This project could not have been completed without the support of our funders, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (Award number: SUFIAN18IM-24IM; IRB exemption: 20190681-124636-1) and PCORI (Award number: 10569-U Wash). Our CFF Impact Award Program Officers, Piper Beatty and Melody Zelenz, were extremely helpful with their guidance and logistical support. We are very appreciative of the efforts of Caitlin Mitchell at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s  Community Voice, who assisted with our chapter writer recruitment from 2023-2025, and all the men and women who helped update and write new chapters for the guide. The Head and staff of the Department of Medical Education at the University of Illinois Chicago provided invaluable, behind-the-scenes support for this grant. Mallika Patil, the Impact Award project manager and website designer, as well as Katie Malik and Madeline Lee, our Community Engagement Award website designers, offered their website expertise and lent their assistance in putting this guide online and revising our website.