Facuty Research Activities | UCSF School of Nursing

Faculty Research Activities

All A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Faculty Name, Title, Email	Department	Research Program, Theoretical Focus, Current Projects, Active Grants
Janet Shim PhD Associate Professor janet.shim@ucsf.edu	Social and Behavioral Sciences	Research Program: Disparities in health status and health care; social production of health; analysis of the science of health disparities. Theoretical Focus: Sociology of health and illness; theories of race, class, and gender inequality; social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Current Projects: Sociological analysis of the discipline of epidemiology, recent developments in the study of health disparities, and the etiology of complex diseases; investigation of health care interactions and the role of social and cultural factors. The Role of Cultural Capital in Health Care Interactions is a pilot project that seeks to develop the concept of “cultural health capital” (CHC)—a set of cultural skills, dispositions, and resources that are critical to the ability to obtain health care services, effectively engage with clinical providers, and other factors important in disease management. This pilot study will focus on interactions between health care providers and individuals with coronary heart disease or Type 2 diabetes. Conceptions of Race and Ethnicity Used in Gene-Environment Interaction Studies is a qualitative study which focuses on genome scientists’ understandings of and research practices around race and ethnicity, in US-based gene-environment interaction (GEI) studies that investigate complex disease etiology.
David E. Smith MD, FASAM, FAACT Adjunct Professor DrSmith@DrDave.org	Institute for Health & Aging	Research Program: Addiction Medicine & Clinical Toxicology. Theoretical Focus: Addiction is a brain disease and as such can be medically treated. Current Projects: Founder and Medical Director, Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, San Francisco; Medical Director, California Collaborative Center for Substance Abuse Policy Research; Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment.
Elizabeth A. Smith PhD Associate Adjunct Professor libby.smith@ucsf.edu	Social and Behavioral Sciences	Research Program: Tobacco control issues; marginalized populations; roles of media and multinational corporations in shaping health policy issues and health advocacy; policy and media advocacy. Theoretical Focus: Policy theory; public relations/communication theory; marginalization; history. Current Projects: Tobacco Influence on Tobacco Control Efforts and Policies within the U.S. Military; Tobacco Industry Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns; Tobacco Waste Environmental Issues.
Joanne Spetz PhD Professor joanne.spetz@ucsf.edu	Community Health Systems	Research Program: Nursing labor markets, quality of hospital care, hospital information systems, maternal-child health, cost-effectiveness analysis, econometrics. Theoretical Focus: Economics, evaluation methods, econometrics and statistics, cost-effectiveness analysis. Current Projects: Evaluations of efforts to increase nurse supply, surveys of nurses and other health professionals, the dynamics of nursing shortages, the impact of unions on hospital staffing and quality of care, effects of hospital information technologies on nurses, minimum nurse-to-patient ratios.
Anita L. Stewart PhD Professor Emerita anita.stewart@ucsf.edu	Institute for Health & Aging	Research Program: Conducting community-based interventions to improve health behaviors in ethnically diverse adults and older adults; physical activity promotion in seniors, measurement and methodological issues in conducting research in health and health care disparities; quality of interpersonal processes of care in minority and disadvantaged populations; social psychology; health psychology; social ecology; community-based participatory research. Theoretical Focus: Social psychology; health psychology; social ecology; community-based participatory research. Current Projects: Physical Activity and Diet to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes Risk.
William Strawbridge PhD, MPH Adjunct Professor bill.strawbridge@ucsf.edu	Institute for Health & Aging	Research Program: Gerontology focusing on older persons’ adaptations to the challenges of aging, spousal relationships among older couples including differential impacts and reactions by gender and marital quality, consequences of hearing impairment, and importance of education to lessen the stigma associated with the use of hearing aids. Theoretical Focus: We can’t cure old age but we can learn to adapt to its challenges and continue to grow and live fulfilling lives. Current Projects: Using data from the Alameda County Study to complete a series of publications on older couple’s health by analyzing extent to which the cognitive impairment of spouses affects their partners’ cognitive function and extent to which the sensory impairment of spouses affects their partners’ successful aging; planning a study to improve testing for hearing loss by primary care practitioners and to improve acceptance and use of hearing aids for older persons diagnosed with hearing loss.
Hai-Yen Sung PhD Adjunct Professor hai-yen.sung@ucsf.edu	Institute for Health & Aging	Research Program: Economics of tobacco control, cervical cancer screening and outcomes, evaluation of HMO quality of care, medical utilization and cost, econometric modeling, statistical programming, and time-series forecasting; economic costs of illness and smoking. Theoretical Focus: Economics of tobacco control and policy, cancer screening and outcomes, and economic costs of illness and smoking. Current Projects: The Disproportionate Cost of Smoking for Communities of Color; Smoking Cessation and Medical Care Use/Costs in a Large HMO; The Cost of Breast Cancer in California; Tobacco Control Policy Analysis & Intervention Evaluation in China; A Dynamic Model of Smoking and Healthcare Expenditures in California.
Lisa Thompson RN, PhD, FNP-C Assistant Professor lisa.thompson@nursing.ucsf.edu	Family Health Care Nursing	Research Program: For the past decade, I have conducted research with a prospective children’s cohort of 500 children enrolled in a randomized stove intervention trial in rural Guatemala (RESPIRE/CRECER studies, UC Berkeley http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/guat/) which measured the impact of household air pollutants from indoor cooking fires on childhood pneumonia and low birth weight. My current research interests are to expand the evidence of an association between low birth weight, decreased anthropometric growth (primarily stunting and wasting), and delayed neurodevelopment among neonates and young children who are heavily exposed to air pollutants from wood-fueled cook stoves in resource-limited countries. While my primary exposure of interest is household air pollution from solid fuel cook-stoves, to which half of the world’s population is highly exposed, other causative and/or contributing factors are also be explored. Theoretical Focus: Exposure-disease-stress model for environmental health disparities, quantitative statistical methods. Current Projects: Together with UCSF faculty and midwifery students, we conducted a training of local traditional birth attendants to assess newborn gestational age and weighing and measuring newborns. See FHCN Fall 2009 department newsletter at http://nurseweb.ucsf.edu/fhcn/fhcn-09fa.pdf for more details. I am a member of the Global Health Sciences faculty and received a research award to investigate the breadth and depth of environmental health nursing curricula at Schools of Nursing and Midwifery in Latin America. I am currently working with faculty at a nursing school in Northern Peru. In 2011, I was awarded a UCSF CTSI KL2 award to conduct pilot work on neurodevelopment and growth of infants exposed pre-natally and post-natally to household air pollution. I am conducting a population-based research to examine the perception of environmental risk among vulnerable populations domestically. This research study on health equity and social determinants of health is targeting underserved Hawaiian communities in Oahu.
Margaret I. Wallhagen PhD, GNP-BC, AGSF, FAAN Professor and Director, UCSF John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence meg.wallhagen@nursing.ucsf.edu	Physiological Nursing	Research Program: Area: Gerontology/Geriatrics. Theory development: sense of control; cross-cultural issues related to caregiving and sense of control; successful aging. Populations: Informal caregivers, Dyads dealing with age related changes and chronic conditions. Health conditions and symptoms: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus; sensory alterations, especially hearing loss. Theoretical Focus: Sense of control; person-environment transaction/person-environment fit; dyadic relationships. Current Projects: The impact of hearing impairment on older individuals and their families. Influence of the built environment on outcomes of residents in nursing homes.
Catherine M. Waters RN, PhD Professor catherine.waters@nursing.ucsf.edu	Community Health Systems	Research Program: Health promoting lifestyle interventions in collaboration with public and private community partnerships. Theoretical Focus: Social cognitive theory, culture, socio-ecology, and community-based participatory research, diplomacy and democracy. Current Projects: NuFIT: Nutrition and Fitness for Life Cancer Prevention Trial.