Progress and Growth Through CoHSTAR Fellowships

Peter Coyle, PT, DPT, PhD, originally joined the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research (FPTR)-funded Center on Health Services Research and Training (CoHSTAR) in 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow, where he focused on age-related mobility loss and community-based exercise programs.

Coyle will once again begin a second fellowship with CoHSTAR in Fall 2021.

Physical therapist researchers joining CoHSTAR as fellows are paired with faculty mentors at one of CoHSTAR’s participating academic institutions. Coyle will begin his part-time CoHSTAR inaugural Faculty Fellowship with Brooks Rehabilitation in September. Coyle will advance his data analytical skillset by assisting Brooks Rehabilitation’s Center for Data Solutions in analyzing nationally-collected Medicare insurance claims data. He will be mentored by Janet Freburger, PT, PhD, and together will lay the foundation for developing and testing implementation interventions to optimize care transitions.

Coyle is also a LeaRRN scholar and is working closely with Freburger to investigate care pathways of patients with stroke who are discharged from acute care and inpatient rehabilitation settings back into the community.

Thanks to the support of FPTR and CoHSTAR, Coyle has been able to land several other grants to further his research:

• A $25,000 grant for his project, “Trunk Extension Endurance and Walking Difficulty within Older Adults.” This project was funded by the Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core of the Pittsburgh Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.
• A $70,000 Clinical Research Loan Repayment Award from the National Institute of Aging through the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) competitive Loan Repayment Program.
• A $15,000 Learning Health Systems Scholar Award through the LEARRN: Mentored Collaborative Opportunities Component

Peter Coyle, PT, DPT, PhD is a clinical research scientist in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Delaware.