This research project focuses on examining and evaluating the use and validity of patient-reported outcomes measures in diverse populations. African American patients have a higher prevalence and greater severity of PAD when compared with white or Hispanic patients, and have worse PAD-related outcomes. It is therefore likely that African American patients might have different health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) at baseline, differing changes in HR-QOL in response to treatment, and differing responses to PROs typically designed and validated in non-racially diverse populations. Unfortunately, there are no PAD-specific PROs with robust psychometric properties that have been well validated in African American patients and therefore clinicians and researchers are unable to evaluate PAD-related HR-QOL in this important subgroup for PAD patients.

The validity of the English-language PAQ, VascuQOL, and WIQ for use in African American patients has not been established. A recent study in African Americans indicated that the PAQ overall summary score did not differ significantly from baseline to follow-up in a population of African American patients undergoing a peripheral vascular intervention (PVI) procedure (18). However, there are no validation studies of the performance of the PAQ or the VascuQOL in African American PAD patients, hampering efforts to include African American PAD patients in research and care improvement efforts. This project seeks to validate these instruments in African American patients with IC.

Dr. Jennifer Rymer is an interventional cardiologist and peripheral vascular specialist at Duke University Medical Center.

She completed medical school at Vanderbilt University, as well as a Master of Business Administration. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Duke University and was selected to be Chief Resident at Duke University Hospital. She then went on to general cardiology and interventional cardiology fellowship at Duke, where she was elected to be Chief Clinical Cardiology Fellow.

Dr. Rymer has received several clinical and research awards, including the Joseph McClellan Award for most outstanding chief resident, the Walter Floyd Award for excellence in clinical cardiology, and the Robert Harrington Award for excellence in clinical research at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. She also received the William Keating career development award from the American College of Cardiology, as well as funding through several grant mechanisms from Boston Scientific and Abbott. Dr. Rymer just recently completed a Master of Health Sciences from Duke. She has over 50 peer-reviewed publications.