UF nursing researcher receives NIH funding

November 28, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – University of Florida College of Nursing associate professor Shawn Kneipp has been awarded $1.4 million from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research to lead an innovative community-based participatory research study intended to improve the health of women transitioning from welfare to work and to extend employment duration.

Major changes in the United States welfare system since 1996 have resulted in an increasing number of women moving into low-wage jobs through welfare transition programs, Kneipp said. Yet studies have documented that 30 percent of these women return to the program within one year of exit because they have difficulty staying employed. A key factor driving re-entry is the extremely high prevalence of chronic health conditions in this group. Data from Kneipp’s previous research has shown that current approaches to addressing these health problems are inadequate and do not address health disparities.

Her current study is unique in that it will center on the welfare transition program participants, who will assist in developing new, culturally relevant and sensitive clinical screening tools to assess the health status of women moving through WTPs. The study partners members of the WTP with academic researchers, providers at the Eastside Community Practice in Gainesville, community health leaders and local employers to conduct the research.

Kneipp’s research team will assess whether a comprehensive health program will increase rates of voluntary screening, identification and treatment of chronic health conditions, raise the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the Medicaid system, increase employment duration and improve health status.

In the first year of the study, the research team will be involved with clinical screening tool development and testing via focus groups and surveys of WTP participants. For the remainder of the study, the team will use the screening tool as one component of testing this public health program – of which an important component will be placing a public health nurse on site – in a randomized clinical trial. The public health nurse will handle case management, follow-ups and referrals of the research participants in order to monitor and assess their health status.

“The use of community-based participatory research is innovative because it allows members of the target community to have some shared control over the research,” Kneipp said. “It is our hope that by conducting this research we can have a better understanding of how to improve the health of disadvantaged women through welfare transition programs.”