Brennan Peterson co-presented 2 papers at the 2011 meeting of the Copenhagen Multi-Centre Psychosocial Infertility (COMPI) Research meeting. The COMPI team is an interdisciplinary group of infertility scholars from the fields of medicine, public health, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Dr. Peterson represents the United States while other countries represented include Denmark, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Israel.

The group examined the psychosocial impact of infertility on men and women and sought to understand how infertility treatments and their outcomes are related to personal and social stress in couples. As a member of the team, Dr. Peterson presented papers on examining the role that secrecy regarding one’s infertility has on social support. He also co-presented about a new typology to identify types of coping strategies for men and women experiencing infertility. Dr. Peterson’s previous work with the COMPI group has examined the impact of couple coping patterns on an individual’s personal, social, and marital distress. He has also examine how the stress of infertility can also lead to long-term benefits in couples including increased marital benefit – when the stress of the infertility experience paradoxically brings the couple closer. His work has been published in Human Reproduction and Fertility and Sterility.