School Notes: School of Nursing
September/October 2010

Health videos feature casts from local high schools

A new online obesity prevention program from YSN, to be delivered in New Haven high schools this fall, incorporates video vignettes of teen challenges to healthy eating and physical activity. YSN investigators Dean Margaret Grey and Robin Whittemore have been funded by the National Institutes of Health to develop and test the innovative program.

The casts for the video vignettes were selected from two local arts high schools, Cooperative Arts and Humanities Magnet and ACES: Educational Center for the Arts. The Yale research team working on the project collaborated with the Department of Interactive Communications at Quinnipiac University on the production.

Yale-Howard Scholars program celebrates tenth year

This summer marked the tenth year of the Josiah Macy’s Yale-Howard Interdisciplinary Health Scholars Program, a partnership that brings together undergraduate students and research mentors in a six-week intensive program at Yale School of Nursing. Seven students from three universities were invited to participate this year in research teams that studied health inequities in various contexts. The students also had the opportunity to shadow clinicians at Yale–New Haven Hospital, gaining experience for future graduate study in nursing, medicine, or public health.

Since its inception in 2000, more than 60 students have benefited from the Yale-Howard program. Many students have published with their faculty mentors, and the majority have gone on to pursue graduate studies. The program is led by Barbara Guthrie, associate professor and associate dean for academic affairs at YSN, and her collaborator, Dr. Forrester Lee, professor of medicine and assistant dean for multicultural affairs at the Yale School of Medicine.

Delivering diabetes prevention close to home

An innovative diabetes prevention program will be delivered in an eastern Connecticut community through a partnership between the School of Nursing and VNA East of Mansfield, Connecticut. The research study will recruit 25 participants in each of four neighborhoods in Willimantic, Connecticut, to take part in the program, in which visiting nurses will provide in-home support to adults at risk for diabetes. The study’s success will be measured by clinical outcomes such as weight loss, blood pressure, and levels of insulin resistance, as well as behavioral changes such as exercise and eating habits. The program is funded through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.