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Research and Scholarly Interests

My clinical practice informs my research and scholarship. It was from my clinical practice that I first became interested in how to influence women to engage in physical activity to prevent heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of women. Low-income women especially are the most vulnerable to developing heart disease and suffering complications, yet they are the least likely to exercise. Much of the published research on barriers to physical activity had been conducted on male subjects and middle and upper income populations. Little was known about women, and particularly low-income women, and their barriers to engaging in physical activity for their health. Far less was known about whether a popular behavioral science framework for influencing change that had been tested with middle and higher income populations to influence physical activity, the Transtheoretical Model, would be effective if used with this population. This became my area of research in my doctoral program. Since coming to USI I have given paper presentations and poster presentations on this topic of original research at national, regional, and local refereed conferences, and have mentored graduate nursing students in research studies based upon my doctoral work. I have one manuscript under review with the Journal of Applied Research and two other manuscripts in progress on my research.

I am beginning to establish a program of funded research. In 2005 I gratefully received an Excellence through Engagement Summer Research Fellowship for $7,000.00 through the University of Southern Indiana from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. This funding allowed me to conduct the next phase of my research, a two-group randomized experimental design study entitled “Efficacy of a Stage-Matched Physical Activity Message for Low-Income Women.” I have presented this study at two leading peer-reviewed research conferences (a paper presentation at the Midwest Nursing Research Society and a poster presentation at the National Organization for Nurse Practitioner Faculties) and a paper presentation at our local nursing research conference at USI during spring 2006.

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