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Research Forum

Welcome to the ANHE Research Forum!

The Research Forum frames and supports an agenda for enabling nurses to solve environmental challenges to health through the creation of new knowledge. We would be delighted if you would consider joining the Research Forum, where we highlight research talks and new research directions using a journal club format. We aim to bring members together to collaborate on publications, grant proposals, and policy actions related to environmental health. 

The Research Forum provides excellent resources, support, and mentorship for all researcher experience levels. Together, novice and experienced nurse researchers focus on environmental health issues of concern.

The ANHE Research Forum benefits from close partners working in advocacy, practice, and education. Critical research questions arise from these relationships and the resulting research agenda reflects the most current and pressing challenges of our profession. The Research Forum holds monthly meetings and you can view past webinars on ANHE YouTube channel! 

Sign up for our workgroup listserve so you can stay up to date with our activities: Sign up and learn more below!

For more information about the ANHE Research Forum, please contact info@envirn.org. 

Join our upcoming monthly calls!

April 25, 2024 – 3pm ET

Title: Impact of Epigenetic Age Acceleration on Racial and Neighborhood Disparities in Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Speaker: Pamela Jackson, PhD, RN, MLT(ASCP)BB

Life expectancy can differ by as much as 20 years for people living in different neighborhoods of the same city. Age-related chronic disease outcomes also differ greatly by place, with residents of more affluent neighborhoods living longer, healthier lives. Frequently, high deprivation neighborhoods are majority-minority. However, the biological pathways for how race, place, and health intersect – culminating in health disparities and shorter life expectancy – have not been well examined. In this presentation, Dr. Jackson will discuss multiple research studies that have explored race, neighborhood deprivation, and epigenetic age acceleration as antecedents for disparities in chronic musculoskeletal pain outcomes. Pamela Jackson, PhD, RN, MLT(ASCP)BB is a nurse scientist and an Assistant Professor in the department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Jackson’s research focuses on the influence of neighborhood-level environmental exposures on the pace of biological aging. Jackson is particularly interested in the adverse health impacts of climate change on socioeconomically vulnerable communities and using community-engaged approaches to examine the intersection of climate and health. Dr. Jackson has an extensive 20+ year history working in healthcare systems and grew up in socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhoods – bringing inherent ties and shared perspective with communities’ environmental concerns. Jackson was selected as a member of the 2023 cohort of the NIH/NIEHS Environmental Health Research Institute for Nurse and Clinician Scientists. Her work has resulted in multiple peer-reviewed publications; local, state, and national conference presentations; and grant funding from NIH/NIA. 

May 23, 2024 – 3pm ET

Speaker: Dr. Lisa M. Thompson, PhD, RN, FNP, FAAN

Register for one or all upcoming webinars here 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting

1 hour of Nursing Continuing Education credit will be provided for participants who complete an evaluation and earn 80% on the post-test. 

Environmental Health Nurse Research Priorities

What distinguishes environmental health nursing research from other disciplines of research? Environmental health nursing research is typically defined by a public health problem, whether that be in a clinical, community or occupational setting. Use of a symptom science model can be useful for clinical and public health research and is relevant to the scope and standards of nursing (Castner, 2019)

The ANHE Research Forum has developed a set of environmental health nurse research priorities to enhance methodological innovations and rigor (see full document here: Aligning-Priorities_7_26_2018-.pdf (2066 downloads ) ). These priorities were last revised 7/2018. Approved by ANHE Board of Directors 7/2018.

  • Vulnerable populations(children, prenatal, older adults, racial/ethnic under-represented, genetically at risk groups)
  • High risk occupations
  • Geographic communities overburdened with environmental pollution
  • EJ communities
  • Clinically at risk populations
  • At risk occupations (special emphasis on healthcare providers)
  • Family systems
  • International/Global Health
  • Occupational
  • Home Environment
  • School Health
  • Geographically defined population
  • Environmental Endotypes of Symptom Clusters, casual pathways to disease development and exacerbation
  • Develop and validate new Biomarkers of Body Burden (internal dose)
  • Validate of objective measures of personal exposure
  • Personalized prevention interventions
  • Report back of exposure, biomarker, and physiologic data
  • Phenotype/endotype identification 
  • Gene-environment interactions (includes epigenetic measures)
  • Symptom clusters
  • Pollutants transformation and interaction in the environment and body
  • Visualization for stakeholder engagement
  • Multi-level analyses
  • Emerging Techniques and large dataset linkages (e.g. machine learning)
  • Clinical/public health practice informatics
  • Secondary data analyses
  • Developing/Testing novel digital applications
  • Big genomics data
  • Big data and precision nursing
  • Smoke/vaping exposure (includes second and third-hand)
  • Climate/Climate Change (Extreme events exposure)
  • Ambient Pollutants (industrial, traffic, extreme events)
  • Heavy Metals in air, water, food, and soil
  • Personal chemical exposures (e.g. pesticides, building materials, personal care products)
  • All hazards: CBRNE
  • Indoor exposures
  • Allostatic load (stress, adverse childhood events, noise, etc)
  • Support development and validation of the Climate Health and Nursing Tool (CHANT)
  • Disaster/disaster preparedness
  • Enivronmental Risk Communication/Addressing perceived risk
  • Smoking Cessation
  • Raise awareness
  • Environmental Health Education
  • Environmental Health Assesment
  • Organizational Sustainability 
  • Patient education and self-management
  • Indoor/outdoor Environmental modification
  • Policy

Research

Featured Webinars

The Research Forum host webinars in which nurse researchers share their environmental health research. View our featured webinars below. You can also view past webinars on ANHE YouTube channel. 

Research Forum Co-Chairs

Lisa M. Thompson

Dr. Thompson, PhD, RN, FNP, FAAN is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at Emory University and affiliated faculty in the Department of Environmental Health in the Rollins School of Public Health. She is the Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD program in nursing. She is a member of the Network for Evaluation and Implementation Sciences at Emory University (NEISE). She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses. Dr. Thompson’s research focuses on environmental health disparities that contribute to adverse perinatal outcomes, specifically low birth weight, preterm birth, child stunting and cognitive development. Her contribution to nursing research is in global environmental health, specifically developing and evaluating interventions to reduce exposures to household air pollution from cooking fires in low-resource countries.

Liz Mizelle

Elizabeth (Liz) Mizelle, PhD, RN-BC, CNE is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina (NC). She graduated with a PhD in 2021 and her dissertation research was a community-informed mixed methods study on environmental heat stress, fluid intake and hydration status among eastern NC farmworkers. Liz is building a research program focused on the negative health effects of extreme weather on coastal, rural, and agricultural communities. She is an AgriSafe Nurse Scholar and a Daisy Faculty Award recipient.