Nursing Faculty Awarded More than $10 Million in Grants to Study Cardiac Care, HIV
Two new Columbia Nursing faculty have received major grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to support their innovative research.
Professor Ruth Masterson Creber, PhD, was awarded a $2,570,249 R01 grant for her four-year study, “Improve the Meaning of Patient-Reported Outcomes to Evaluate Effectiveness for Cardiac Care (IMPROVE-Cardiac Care).”
IMPROVE-Cardiac Care will aim to identify minimally important clinical differences (MICDs) in patient-reported outcomes for three distinct groups of people with heart disease: coronary heart disease patients recovering after coronary artery bypass grafting; patients with heart failure (HF) recovering after hospitalization; and HF patients with preserved ejection fraction undergoing ambulatory management. The goal of the study, which will employ multiple statistical methods along with video ethnography, will be to determine MICDs that are clinically actionable for care teams by flagging patients who are not recovering optimally and target early interventions to improve outcomes.
Professor Masterson Creber (contact PI), with Dr. Brock Daniels from Weill Cornell Medicine, also received a $4.2 million grant from PCORI for their ongoing study, “Comparing Two Ways to Provide Follow-up Care to Patients with Heart Failure After Hospital Discharge (MIGHTY-Heart).” The trial is testing patient outcomes with mobile integrated health (facilitated telehealth by a community paramedic with an emergency medicine physician and a nurse care coordinator) or a call from a care transitions coordinator.
Associate Professor Corina Lelutiu-Weinberger, PhD, recently received two major NIH awards for her research on reducing health inequities.
Her R01 grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research includes five years of funding, a total of $3,786,473, for “Ending the HIV Epidemic with Equity: An All-facility Intervention to Reduce Structural Racism and Discrimination and its Impact on Patient and Healthcare Staff Wellbeing.” The study will engage Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program-funded organizations to develop evidence-informed interventions to reduce structural racism and discrimination against Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) people living with HIV and BIPOC health care workers.
The NIH’s Fogarty International Center also awarded Lelutiu-Weinberger an R33 grant for her research study titled “Preparing for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation in Central-Eastern European Countries with Low Access to Biomedical Prevention.” The $981,844 grant will support a three-year study to test PrEP Romania, a culturally adapted pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake and adherence program that uses in-person and mobile health to empower gay and bisexual men and their health care system to adopt this powerful biomedical prevention option not currently accessible in Romania and much of Central and Eastern Europe.