School faculty secure $4.2 million in NIH research funding

The University of Rochester School of Nursing & Health Sciences is building momentum in research, with faculty receiving nine new National Institutes of Health awards totaling more than $4.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027.

These awards support faculty-led research addressing urgent health priorities — including HIV prevention, healthy aging, dementia caregiving, cancer survivorship, reproductive health – as well as the use of technology and predictive analytics to improve patient care. Together, these projects aim to improve health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.

“These awards reflect our faculty’s hard work, persistence, and commitment to improving health,” said Sally Norton, PhD, RN, FNAP, FPCN, FAAN, senior associate dean for research. “This funding will enable them to pursue important questions and generate evidence that can improve care and make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.”

The new NIH awards build on nearly $4.5 million in awards the School received from all funding sources in fiscal year 2026, bringing total awards since the start of that fiscal year to nearly $8.8 million. Beyond NIH-funding, the School’s broader grant portfolio includes support for health professions education and clinical practice, reflecting its commitment to improving health through discovery, education, and care. Grant awards include:

Cancer survivorship

Two new studies will focus on young adult cancer survivors. The first is a multilevel intervention study that aims to improve employment outcomes among young adult cancer survivors. Over the next five years, Lauren Ghazal, PhD, FNP-BC, assistant professor and associate member in Wilmot Cancer Institute’s Cancer Prevention and Control research group, will conduct a pilot clinical trial for a dyadic intervention to support employment and receive training in implementation science, health economics methods in cancer care delivery research, and clinical trials.

In the second, three-year study, Ghazal and Catherine Benedict, PhD, clinical associate professor, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences - medical psychiatry, Stanford, will adapt and pilot test a Roadmap to Parenthood, an evidence-based, interactive decision aid and planning tool for family building after cancer. The Roadmap tool has the potential to address health disparities and improve access to family-building options for a broader population of young adult cancer survivors.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers K08CA304529 and R34CA300990)}

Identify perimenopause in EHR data

Caitlin Dreisbach, PhD, RN, assistant professor and assistant dean of undergraduate education, will lead this study to develop and validate a computational method to identify perimenopause in electronic health record data, which affects all midlife women but remains poorly defined in EHR data. Through accurate detection of this transition, a novel computational phenotype will allow researchers and clinicians to better study its role in chronic disease risk and to design timely, targeted prevention and treatment strategies.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21HD123838)}

Precision contraception

Developing precision tools to support the tailored prescription of hormonal contraception will be the focus of this study. Preventing pregnancy or controlling reproductive conditions, like abnormal uterine bleeding, often utilizes hormonal contraception. An estimated 20% to 40% of women will change hormonal methods due to symptoms or side effects, which is associated with higher rates of unplanned pregnancies. More streamlined care, where hormonal contraception tolerability or symptom-responses could be predicted, result in fewer lapses, and improve adherence and patient-reported outcomes. Caitlin Dreisbach, PhD, RN, assistant professor and assistant dean of undergraduate education, will lead this study.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21HD123643)}

Glucose regulation during pregnancy after GLP-1 use

To better understand the impact of pre-pregnancy semaglutide, this study will focus on glucose regulation, an important physiological pathway possibly mediating semaglutide use/discontinuation and pregnancy outcomes. This research, led by Caitlin Dreisbach, PhD, RN, assistant professor and assistant dean of undergraduate education, and Yang Yu, PhD, MPH, MSN, assistant professor, aims to compare glucose regulation and body weight across pregnancy in women with pre-pregnancy semaglutide use and women matched on pre-pregnancy BMI who never used semaglutide. It will also examine the association between the timing of semaglutide discontinuation and glucose regulation and body weight.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21HD122977)}

Positive emotions’ role among older adults with mild cognitive impairment

Led by Rose Lin, PhD, RN, assistant professor, this study will test whether positive emotions can buffer the impact of stressor exposure on negative emotions in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, which diminishes quality of life and doubles their risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. This research will examine if inducing positive affect before an acute laboratory stressor and maintaining positive affect across the lab session can mitigate the link between stress-induced affect reactivity and subsequent negative mood states.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R03AG101174)}

Latino caregiver support

This two-phase project will co-develop—with a Latino Community Advisory Board (CAB)—a weekly, six-session behavioral intervention to increase Latino caregiver self-efficacy and improve or prevent caregiver stress, burden, and depression. Compared to other racial and ethnic groups, Latinos have the highest prevalence of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Latino caregivers also spend more time in caregiving-related activities and experience greater caregiver burden, have limited support, and have worse psychological outcomes. Maria M. Quiñones-Cordero, PhD, assistant professor of clinical nursing and director of Latino engagement at the Elaine Hubbard Center for Nursing Research on Aging, will lead the project.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Aging under Award Number 1K23AG093154-01A1)}

Reducing the burden of malnutrition

Refeeding hypophosphatemia (RH) is the hallmark risk factor of the potentially fatal refeeding syndrome resulting from the reintroduction of nutrients in malnourished individuals. Following the identification of a comprehensive panel of factors associated with the development of RH, this research will focus on developing an accessible, clinician-facing tool to accurately predict RH risk and inform patient-centered care. Meredith Kells, PhD, RN, CPNP, FSAHM, assistant professor, will lead this research.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21HD120816)}

Implementation science to optimize PrEP delivery

This two-year project aims to generate actionable, implementation science–ready evidence to optimize delivery of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) by healthcare providers in the U.S. It aims to deliver a rigorously curated dataset of provider-focused PrEP implementation evidence, a transparent and reproducible Bayesian meta-implementation analytic framework and codebook, and a practice-oriented Operational Manual to inform subsequent pilot testing and accelerate progress toward ending the HIV epidemic. Chen Zhang, PhD, MPH, MS, associate professor of nursing, is collaborating with Kevin A. Fiscella, MD, MPH, professor at the University of Rochester Department of Family Medicine.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R03NR022624)}

HIV testing in Ghana

This five-year study will implement and test a multilevel intervention program to upscale HIV testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake for men in Ghana with high HIV exposure by leveraging community pharmacies in resource-limited settings. This research will be led by Gamji Rabiu Abu-Ba’are, PhD, MA, associate professor of nursing. Learn more.

_{(Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01MH140750)}

Note: The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.