CCIR FUNDED PILOT STUDIES

Each academic year, the CCIR funds three pilot studies. A member of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing faculty serves as an investigator on each study, collaborating with scientists and scholars from across the Hopkins community and beyond.

Assistant Professor Maureen George, PhD will study how stress affects the vision of patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which causes progressive unpredictable vision loss. George and her research team will assess RP patients to examine how vision may fluctuate with high levels of perceived stress. The team will then compare two methods of alleviating negative psychological states and vision variability: a mind-body, cognitive-behavioral stress reduction intervention and an eye exercise program.

George is working with Co-Principal Investigator Ava Kiser, PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Other Hopkins collaborators are co-investigators Lori Edwards, MPH, BSN, (School of Nursing); Gislin Dagnelie, PhD (School of Medicine); Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD (School of Medicine); and Intervention Coordinator Anne Dorsey Emmons, MS.

Associate Professor Nancy Glass, PhD, MPH, RN seeks to aid victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) by incorporating tailored communication strategies into an existing “safety decision aid” computer program. The program, designed to assess women’s safety priorities and level of danger, will be augmented with messages on how women can use community-based resources and take action to reduce their risk. The enhanced computerized safety decision aid will be tested with victims of IPV in Baltimore to obtain feedback on the program’s graphics and design, assessment components, tailored messages content, cultural competency and comprehension.

Co-investigators include School of Nursing faculty Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD and Laura Taylor, PhD, along with Andrea Gielen, ScD, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Karen Eden, PhD, faculty at Oregon Health & Science University.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth (Ibby) Tanner, PhD, RN will evaluate the effectiveness of the Baltimore Experience Corps Study (BECS) motivational screening instrument, which was designed to predict trends in the recruitment of older adults for a randomized control trial. Using the instrument, the research team will analyze strategies for successful targeting of older adults from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds, aiming to discover clues that will lead to more effective recruiting of eligible, motivated study participants.

Tanner’s co-investigators are from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: MiYong Kim, PhD; Iveris L. Martinez, PhD; QiLu Yu, PhD; Erwin Tan, MD; and Linda Fried, MD, MPH.