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META-Health
for Better Health
Study
targets cardovascular health disparities
 he
School of Nursing is a key player in a major interdisciplinary
effort to address health disparities between African Americans
and Caucasians at high risk for developing cardiovascular disease.
Funded by $6 million from the NIH, the five-year partnership involves
physicians and nurses from Emory University and Morehouse School
of Medicine. Leading the team
from the nursing perspective is Dr. Sandra Dunbar,
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Cardiovascular
Nursing. |
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The project, known as META-Health
(Morehouse and Emory are Teaming up to eliminAte Health disparities)
focuses on “metabolic syndrome,” a cluster of health
risk factors including hypertension, abnormal cholesterol, high
triglycerides, abdominal obesity, and elevated blood glucose. Individuals
with at least three of these factors have metabolic syndrome, which
puts them at very high risk for developing diabetes and cardiovascular
disease.
META-Health targets the large and
diverse ethnic population living in the Southeast, the U.S. region
at greatest risk for cardiovascular disease. According to several
epidemiologic studies, African Americans are more likely to experience
cardiovascular disease and death than are Caucasians. The META-Health
project encompasses several studies to address this health problem.
One of these studies will identify specific differences in risk
factors in both populations, including differences in biomarkers,
clinical signs, and psychosocial factors, as well as disparities
in recognition and treatment of metabolic syndrome. Armed with a
greater understanding of these factors, the research team will then
develop and test targeted interventions aimed at improving overall
cardiovascular health.
The META-Health project seeks to address
metabolic syndrome from a broad sociological, cultural, and biomedical
perspective through different projects. Dunbar leads the effort
to develop and seek opinions about a lifestyle intervention involving
three focus groups: individuals who have successfully managed their
weight and other risk factors, people with difficulty managing risk
factors, and individuals newly diagnosed with hypertension and metabolic
syndrome.
“By understanding and intervening
with people who have a lot of existing risk factors but who do not
yet have overt coronary artery disease, we hope to modify risk and
reduce heart disease by addressing some of the medical issues and
then moving into strategies of prevention,” says Dunbar. “Our
study is designed to empower people with metabolic syndrome to adopt
prevention strategies through a culturally relevant intervention
and address health care and management issues at the same time.”
In another phase of META-Health, several
hundred patients with metabolic syndrome will participate in a randomized
clinical trial testing a lifestyle management program aimed at improving
physical activity, diet, weight control, and medication compliance.
Participants will receive pedometers to help promote walking and
self-monitoring, with the goal of walking 10,000 steps each day.
Telephone follow-up and counseling will provide motivation and support.
After one year, researchers will measure changes in biomarkers of
risk, physical activity, and vascular function.
The Emory-Morehouse School of Medicine
partnership is one of only six programs nationwide funded by the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to address cardiovascular
health disparities. The partnerships promote collaboration among
research-intensive institutions, minority-serving systems, academicians,
clinicians, public health practitioners, students, and laypersons
all working within high-risk ethnic communities.
In addition to the School of Nursing,
the META-
Health partnership includes Drs. Arshed Quyyumi, Viola Vaccarino,
and Bobby Khan of the School of Medicine, with Quyyumi as team leader.
Leading the team at Morehouse is Dr. Gary Gibbons, director and
founder of the Morehouse School of Medicine Cardiovascular Research
Institute, along with Drs. Rebecca Din and Priscilla Pemu.
META-Health partners also will collaborate
with the CDC and community organizations throughout the metro-Atlanta
area.
—Holly
Korschun
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Happy
100th Birthday! |
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es,
it’s official. The School of Nursing is now a century
old. To mark this once-in-a-lifetime occasion, alumni, faculty,
staff, students, and guests from the Emory and Atlanta communities
attended an open house on August 16, the school’s 100th
birthday. Visitors like Virginia Eubanks LeCraw, 58N, (above,left)
and Betty Marie Stewart, 52N, dropped by the school throughout
the day to take part in the festivities. In addition to birthday
cake, guests at the open house were treated to health screenings
and building tours. Of special interest was the patient simulation
lab, located in the Charles F. and Peggy Evans Center for
Caring Skills. There, guests had a firsthand look at the latest
technology that nursing faculty use to instill students with
the skills they need to provide the very best in patient care.
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A
National Presence
Nursing
maintains top 20 NIH ranking
 esearchers
in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing have done it again.
The school ranked 19th among all U.S. schools of nursing in 2004
in attracting funding from the National Institutes of Health, maintaining
a top 20 ranking for two years in a row.
The $2.32 million in NIH funding last
year places the school fifth in the nation among private nursing
schools. Including NIH funding, the School of Nursing received a
total of $3.2 million in external funding for research and training
last year.
“Maintaining our top 20 NIH
ranking for two years in a row, up from 36th in 2002, clearly demonstrates
the success and commitment of our faculty and staff to improving
patient care through nursing research,” says Dean Marla Salmon.
“These scholars exemplify our school’s values of scholarship,
leadership, and social responsibility.”
The NIH funding includes approximately
$1 million for a three-year renewal for the school’s Center
for Research on Symptoms, Symptom Interactions, and Health Outcomes.
According to Salmon, this new and competitive award from the NIH
further enhances an area where Emory’s nursing school is already
in a position of national leadership.
The school’s center focuses
on research related to symptoms and their effect on the treatment
of disease and develops and tests interventions to reduce the negative
effects of symptoms. Current research initiatives include how hemodialysis
affects the quality and timing of the sleep/wake cycle in patients
with kidney failure, creating and testing educational interventions
for patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators, and the
role of the family in providing care for stroke victims.
—Amy
Comeau
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