The programs of research of current PhD program faculty fall into three major focal areas:
• Biobehavioral Interactions
• Caregiving and Family Health
• Protecting, Promoting and Restoring Health
Faculty currently serving as PhD research mentors and their programs of research are described below. For additional information about School of Nursing faculty, please refer to the alphabetical listing located at: Our Faculty and Staff
Dr. Marti Rice
Anger and Stress and Psychophysiologic Outcomes in Children
Dr. Rice's research program focuses on anger and stress in children, particularly school-age children with a special emphasis on biological/physiological/psychosocial interactions and the promotion of health. Conceptual frameworks that have guided her work are anger, stress and coping, and biological/physiological factors. Dr. Rice's early work focused on anger, patterns of anger expression, and stress, coping, and blood pressure in well children in school environments. Her work currently focuses on cognitive behavioral and physical activity interventions to help school age children manage anger and stress and enhance self-concept and positive coping strategies. Outcomes include physiological, behavioral, psychological and health measures. She has particular skill with statistics and the application of quantitative methods with children.
Dr. Anne Turner-Henson
Caregivers of Children and Their Coping and Stress
Dr. Anne Turner-Henson's focus is on caregiving by families of children and adolescents. Her program specifically focuses on an examination of factors to reduce respiratory and environmental risks for young children, and stress, coping and health practices of maternal caregivers of chronically ill children. Her previous research focused on the everyday life experiences of children with special health care needs and health and parenting stress and coping in families with young chronically ill children, including children with chronic conditions in four different countries (US, Japan, Jordan, Israel). She is a highly experienced pediatric nurse with skills relevant to the study of chronically ill children and their families.
Dr. Joan Grant
Caregivers of Neurologically Impaired Adults and Their Problem-Solving
Dr. Joan Grant' s research studies and clinical practice have focused on cognition and consciousness as well as problems, losses, and management strategies of neuroscience populations, such as head-injured adults and stroke survivors and their primary family caregivers. Conceptual frameworks used to guide her studies on informal caregiving are grounded in a stress, coping, and adaptation perspective combined with social problem-solving theory and family caregiver social problem-solving. She studied the delivery of interventions to promote problem-solving and caregiving by telephone and home visiting. Her work examines predictors of caregiver depression and coping.
Dr. Carol Dashiff
Families and Family Processes in Transitions
Dr. Carol Dashiff's primary research program centers on the family's contribution to health and development of youth with chronic conditions, as well as ultimately fostering overall family health. In addition, as an expert in family and human development, and a psychiatric mental health nurse and family therapist, she is interested working with families to promote adjustment of members and the family as a whole, particularly in illnesses that are chronic with life threatening features that can result in issues related to loss. Thus, her work has both a focus on promoting health and development in adolescents with chronic illness and their family members, along with promoting adjustment to family life transitions. Her current work centers on families of adolescents with IDDM. Dashiff uses attachment theory and related instruments to study family interactions.
Dr. Lynda Wilson
(1) Parenting and Child Health
Dr. Lynda Wilson's program of research has focused on promoting positive parent-infant relationships, particularly focusing on parents with preterm infants, and on developing and evaluating tactile interventions to reduce stress for hospitalized premature infants. These interventions have involved gentle human touch, as well as massage interventions. Dr. Wilson has evaluated the effects of these interventions on a variety of bio-behavioral outcomes including physiological responses (such as oxygen saturation, heart rate, and salivary cortisol levels), behavioral responses (such as infant sleep state and behavioral signs of stress), and health and developmental outcomes (such as weight gain, morbidity indices, and behavioral organization). She is currently evaluating the effects of massage interventions on hospitalized preterm infants, and the effects of a community-based educational intervention for mothers of fullterm infants. She has conducted focus groups with Latino parents to identify their perceptions of child health needs and parenting concerns, and is currently working to develop a community health partnership to promote Latino health in a rural Alabama county, with funding from the Southern Agromedicine Institute.
(2) Promoting Health Through Community Based Intervention
Dr. Lynda Wilson has a strong interest in international health, is fluent in Spanish, and serves as Co-Deputy Director of the UAB World Health Organization Collaborating Center on International Nursing. She has collaborated on teen pregnancy prevention projects with the Latino community in Alabama and in Guatemala, as project evaluator for health projects in Estonia and Latvia, and as consultant in Santiago Chile on collaborative research projects evaluating the effects of massage interventions on hospitalized preterm infants and evaluating the effects of a community-based educational intervention for mothers of fullterm infants.
Dr. Kathleen Brown
Promoting Health and Preventing Injury in Occupational Settings
Dr. Kathleen Brown's research focuses on health promotion and injury prevention in employee populations, with particular emphasis on employee wellness and on protecting workers from musculoskeletal injury. Dr. Brown is an investigator in the AHRQ funded UAB Center for Education and Therapeutics in Musculoskeletal Disorders, and has received NIH funding for back injury prevention clinical trial research. She has served as a member of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) Guidelines Panel on Low Back Dysfunction, as well as AHRQ's panels on Worker Initiatives and on the State of the Science in Musculoskeletal Diseases Research. As an occupational health nurse and expert in health promotion and injury prevention, her work examines health behaviors, job-related health and safety risks, and interventions to improve employee health and safety.
Dr. Jacqueline Moss
Promoting Patient Safety Through Information Communication Technology
Dr. Jacqueline Moss has a wide range of experience in adult critical care practice, nursing education, and research. She has a particular interest in healthcare informatics and earned a doctorate in nursing informatics. Dr. Moss has been involved in multiple projects designed to implement new information and communication technologies for use in healthcare practice and education. Prior to joining UAB in 2002, Dr. Moss held an appointment with the National Study Center for Trauma at the University of Maryland in the Human Factors and Telemedicine Research Group. Research conducted by Dr. Moss includes the determination of information needs for acute care clinical practice and the use of standardized terminologies in health outcomes management. Dr. Moss has experience working with large databases as well as observational research methods.
Dr. Linda Moneyham
Promoting Adaptational Outcomes of Rural Women with HIV
Dr. Linda Moneyham's areas of expertise include stress, coping, and adaptation, women's health, and chronic illness. Her program of research is focused on development of interventions that promote positive health outcomes of rural women with HIV disease. Since 1999, Dr. Moneyham has been testing a peer-based social support intervention for rural women with HIV disease aimed at decreasing depressive symptoms and increasing disease management and quality of life. Her research has been funded by a number of grants from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Nursing Research/National Institutes of Health. Dr. Moneyham is currently conducting pilot research to develop and validate an empowerment intervention aimed at increasing self-care and medication adherence of women with HIV disease. She is experienced in instrument development and both qualitative and quantitative research methods. She is an expert in the use of focus group methods in formative research supportive of the development of culturally-sensitive interventions and field research methods.