Im Earns Oncology Nursing Society Distinguished Researcher Award

The Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) has announced that Eun-Ok Im, PhD, MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN, is the 2023 recipient of its Distinguished Researcher Award. Im is a professor and Edith Folsom Honeycutt Endowed Chair at the School of Nursing.

The award recognizes an ONS member with a sustained program of substantive research that advances the delivery of quality cancer care by nurses and contributes to the cancer community at large.

Im’s research involves the adoption of Internet and computer technologies to examine gender and ethnic disparities in the health and illness experience of midlife women, including those with cancer. Over the years, she has obtained approximately $20 million in funding for oncology and other areas of women’s health research, including five National Institutes of Health R01 grants.

Faculty Collaborations Bring $5.8 Million for Research on Farmworker Health, Maternal Care

School of Nursing faculty and Atlanta-area colleagues are seeking answers to issues affecting the health of farmworkers and Black expectant and birthing women, bringing in a combined $5.86 million in grant funding for the research projects.

School of Nursing professor Vicki Hertzberg, PhD, FASA, and assistant professor Roxana Chicas 16BSN 20PhD were among a group of Emory and Georgia Tech researchers receiving a $2.46 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to develop a multi-sensor biopatch for farmworkers that can predict symptoms of heat-related illness.

Hertzberg is a principal investigator on the four-year grant, which will allow the team to develop a wearable wireless unit for farmworkers with sensors that can predict adverse heat-related medical events and generate warnings about them in real time. The Farmworker Association of Florida is also part of the grant.

The National Institute of Nursing Research awarded a $3.4 million grant for Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory nursing and medicine researchers to study the impact of the integration of community-based, perinatal patient navigation into the continuum of maternal care for Black women in a safety-net health system.

The R01 Research Project provides funding for five years to conduct a randomized controlled trial of the patient navigation intervention to discern its effectiveness in reducing maternal morbidities and mortality and improving unmet social needs, health care utilization, and timeliness of care.

Using equity-focused research frameworks, the multidisciplinary team will evaluate maternal health outcomes and implement a high-fidelity care model intervention.

Rasheeta Chandler, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, associate professor with the School of Nursing, is among the researchers working on the grant.