Nursing and Health Innovation Research

The range of our faculty research in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation is as broad as it is diverse.

Active nursing research projects range from child obesity among young children to Spanish Translation and Validation of Sleep Measures to mental and behavioral problems among children of Chinese immigrants to removing barriers to exercise and physical activity among older Hispanic women. Many of our initiatives are intended to reduce the higher incidences of health disparities among minority populations in the Southwest, including Arizona.

Current nutrition faculty grants focus on a wide range of topics, including the effects of bean, mushroom and vinegar consumption on cardiovascular and metabolic health, vitamin D regulation of inflammatory bowel disease, nutrition education for food bank recipients, and weight control interventions.

One recent $2 million award from NIH is a collaborative effort between Exercise and Wellness Professor Glenn Gaesser and a biomedical engineering business. Their goal is to develop an artificial neural network-based integrated heart rate and physical activity monitor to better assess both quality and quantity of physical activity in children and adults of all ages.

The successful research focus of ASU Nursing and health is an example of the economic benefit a research university can bring to its state. In this case, the benefit has short and long-term consequences. In the short term, Arizona benefits economically from grant funding. In the longer term, Arizonans benefit from research findings that identify preventive and health promotion interventions to improve patient outcomes and help reduce costs.

Each year, Arizona universities pump almost $1 billion into the Arizona economy from their research, most of which is funded by the US government and entities from outside the state. Research money brought in by universities is restricted money that can only be used for the research activity it supports.