Contributions to Public Health
- I am a national leader in Gerontology with expertise in long-term services and supports and home and community-based services. I helped develop self-reported measures of quality of life for nursing home residents, co-authored the seminal paper demonstrating the benefits of the Greenhouse nursing home model, and a recent paper that demonstrated that older adults who use consumer-directed personal care are not at increased risk of hospitalization. I conducted a randomized trial demonstrating an approach to improving quality of life of nursing home residents using a tailored individualized care planning model.
- I have studied end of life care for older adults in community and nursing home setting, examining the use of advance directives and racial and ethnic disparities. One important contribution demonstrated that older adults who have advance care plans are less likely to have a terminal hospitalization.
- In the field of organ and tissue donation, I developed and implemented an approach to incorporate donor designation into the primary care setting using a randomized trial. I also conducted a randomized trial of implementing web-based training into driver’s license centers.
- I host and produce a podcast on research in gerontology, The Gerontologist Podcast, that is published by the Gerontological Society of America and available on all podcast services.
Education
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD | BA, Philosophy
1997 | University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN | PhD, Health Services Research, Policy & Administration
Teaching
HPM 2905 Research Design (Fall)
HPM 3502 Grant Writing (Fall)
HPM 3501 Manuscript Development (Spring)
HPM 3506 Grant Writing Capstone (Fall)
HPM 3066 Current Topics in Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Services and Supports Policy (Spring)
