Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing has received a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the Center for the Study of Symptom Science, Metabolomics and Multiple Chronic Conditions.

The goal of the nurse-led center is to better understand the mechanisms underlying the symptoms of fatigue, depression, and anxiety that often accompany multiple chronic conditions such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, depression, and hypertension, among African-American men and women. This goal is based on past studies that show African-Americans are more susceptible to living with multiple chronic conditions (MCC), which can be related to stress, diet and limited access to health care.

Dr. Elizabeth Corwin, PhD, RN, FAAN, is leading the formation of the center. She reports the long-term aim of the center is to improve clinical treatment approaches for African-American men and women living with MCC. This includes creating treatment plans that can provide care in a more targeted and effective manner.

“Until you understand the underlying mechanisms by which multiple chronic conditions associate with worsening symptom development, it’s difficult to develop care that is specific to relieving symptoms in individual patients,” says Corwin. “Attaining this kind of precision care is a hallmark motivator of nurse-led research.”

School of Nursing faculty collaborating with Corwin on the new center include Dr. Jessica Wells, PhD, RN and Glenna Brewster, PhD, MA, MS, as the Pilot Investigators, and Drs. Mi-Kyung Song, PhD, RN, FAAN, Sandra Dunbar, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA, FPCNA, Drenna Waldrop-Valverde, PhD, Dr. Vicki Hertzberg, PhD, FASA and Marcia Holstad, PhD, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN as leaders of the center cores.