Office of Nursing Research
The Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing is home to one of the nation’s top nursing research enterprises. This year, nearly $10 million in grants helped fund dynamic research in areas ranging from reducing caregiver stress to developing innovative cancer treatments. Our research transcends disciplinary boundaries with collaborations with leading research organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and Emory Healthcare.
Below is a small sampling of the groundbreaking research taking place at Emory’s School of Nursing.
Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing has received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to train nurse scientists to develop innovative clinical interventions for patients with chronic illnesses. Emory is one of 17 nursing schools in the country to receive this competitive nurse training grant.
Dr. Lynn Sibley, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACNM, is leading the Maternal and Newborn Health in Ethiopia Partnership (MaNHEP), a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded, $8.1 million project at the School of Nursing. To help demonstrate a community-oriented model for improving maternal and newborn survival in Ethiopia, MaNHEP works with pregnant women and frontline health workers to build knowledge and skills in the delivery of a basic package of life-saving maternal and newborn health care during the critical period from birth through the first 48 hours of life.
In a recent clinical trial, funded in part with $500,000 from the Georgia Cancer Coalition along with a major grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research, Dr. Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, FAAN, sought to determine whether mindfulness meditation affects the well-being of cancer patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant. For many patients, she found that it does. Bauer-Wu has devoted much of her career to researching how psycho-behavioral interventions, such as music and writing, affect cancer patients’ symptoms and treatment experience.
How well do pregnant farm workers understand the risks associated with exposure to heat, chemicals, and pesticides and ergonomic challenges such as standing for hours at a time? Dean Linda McCauley, PhD, RN, FAAN, received a four-year, $1.2 million CDC grant to gauge how women who work for nurseries and ferneries in Florida view these risks. McCauley’s team will develop educational materials appropriate in culture and language that emphasize health promotion and protective behaviors during pregnancy.
More than 250 students and nurses participated in the 2012 Emory Nursing Research Symposium on April 17. The symposium offered a full-day dialogue on research and evidence-based practice in nursing, and the profession's role in enhancing nursing education, scholarship, and practice and informing health policy.