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Understanding the complex health needs of senior citizens as they cope with chronic and long-term conditions which threaten their independence and health is the focus of gerontological research at the School of Nursing. Researchers seek effective approaches to sustain health, dignity and productivity of seniors, and narrow the gap in health disparities in African Americans, Hispanics, and Caucasians. Other areas of foci include cardiovascular disease, HIV infection, cancer, and the role of exercise in the recovery of hip replacement and post-stroke elders in a variety of settings (community, assisted living facilities, and nursing homes). Core faculty specializing in gerontological research includes: Drs. Picot, Resnick, Spellbring, Shaugnessey, Stull, Muntaner, Abbott, and McCleskey. Sandra Picot’s, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Sonya Ziporkin Gershowitz Endowed Chair in Gerontology, research interests include informal caregiving, integration of culture into the research process, and increasing the participation of under-represented participants and researchers in research. The focus of Barbara Resnick’s, PhD, RN, FAAN, CRNP, GNP research is prolonging senior health and independence through motivation, and Ann Marie Spellbring, PhD, RN has studied falls among the elderly across hospital, nursing home, and community settings. Sustaining the functional ability of post-stroke patients through exercise has been the research goal for Marianne Shaughnessy, PhD, RN, CRNP, GNP. Although they are not nurses, Drs. Carles Mutaner (physician), Bruce Deforge (sociologist) and Donald Stull (sociologist) are excellent resources for gerontological research training. Carles Mutaner’s, MD, MPH research focuses on socioeconomic and race/ethnic inequalities in health and in the utilization of health services. Bruce Deforge, PhD has studied difficult to recruit and retain populations: mentally ill, the homeless, and people with hypertension in mostly ethnic minority populations. He is currently investigating the predictors of formal service use among predominantly AAs in a nurse-managed clinic in Western Baltimore. Finally, Dr.DeForge has been involved with studies that have complex sampling designs with weights and used SUDAAN to analyze the data. Through these positions, Dr. DeForge has developed expertise in sampling recruitment and retention, qualitative research methods, biostatistics, research design, use of mental health measures, and the SF-36. Quality of life and family functioning for patients with heart failure has been the recent focus of Donald Stull’s, PhD work, who specializes in family research, informal caregiving, and application of both qualitative and quantitative methods to research. Finally, Patricia Abbott, PhD, RNC, FAAN specializes in knowledge discovery in large data sets, including the Minimum Data Set, and Sandra McCleskey, PhD, RN studies breast cancer, metastasis, angiogenesis, and estrogen. Interdisciplinary and intercampus collaboration and classes in our doctoral program in gerontology involving the other five professional schools on the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus (i.e., Medicine, Pharmacy, Dental, Social Work, and Law), the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (policy sciences, sociology, and anthropology) and the National Institute on Aging Intramural Program afford the students a gerontological research intensive environment that few schools can rival. Located in Baltimore, the Intramural Research Program (IRP) of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) comprises nine scientific laboratories and a research program that include the scientific disciplines of genetics, behavioral sciences, epidemiology, statistics, and clinical research and the medical disciplines of immunology, endocrinology, cardiology, oncology, and gerontology. It is the repository for the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. This data set is one of few long-term studies that could be included in the core investigations of biopsychosocial pathways of diseases. University of Maryland School of Nursing Home Page
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