MESSAGE from the DEAN
Hello again,
As part of our mission to increase the University of Kansas School of Health Professions’ national and international reputation through significant increase in extramural funding for research, our hard-working and diligent faculty have overwhelmingly stepped up to the challenge. In the past two years, we have increased extramural funding from two to 17 funded grants and our grant dollars by more than 400 percent.
In this edition of The Insider, we are proud to highlight some of our faculty’s exciting research initiatives that have attracted extramural funding, the majority of which are from the National Institutes of Health. The tenacity of our faculty, led by the strong leadership of our associate dean for research, Dr. Susan Carlson, to submit an unprecedented number of applications is highly commendable. The accomplishments of our research faculty are even more compelling in light of the ever-increasing competitiveness of securing extramural funding.
The creation of new intramural funding opportunities is primary to facilitating a culture of research in the KU School of Health Professions. These resources enable faculty to collect valuable pilot data needed for successful extramural grant applications. We also provided some bridge funds which enabled our faculty to continue with ongoing research that eventually constituted a major part of the extramural applications. Details of 14 such intramural opportunities are presented on page 5 of this newsletter. Finally, our success with strategic hiring of faculty with promising research potentials added to the upsurge in our current research pedigree.
As the dean of the KU School of Health Professions, I am extremely appreciative and proud of the hard work and dedication of our faculty and staff. I am also grateful for the support of Dr. Douglas Girod, chancellor of the University of Kansas, and the leadership of the University of Kansas Medical Center, especially executive vice chancellor, Dr. Robert Simari, and vice chancellor for research, Dr. Richard Barohn.
Abiodun Akinwuntan, PhD, MPH, MBA
Dean, School of Health Professions
Professor, Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science Professor, Department of Neurology
IN THIS ISSUE
theinsider, a newsletter from the University of Kansas School of Health Professions, is published twice a year.
To subscribe to the printed edition or to request additional copies, please contact us at: (913) 588-5235 or [email protected].
Fall
|
2018
Message from the Dean
1
Feature stories
KU School of Health Professions 2 associate dean for research,
Susan Carlson, talks about research goals for the school
Sandra Billinger is working on 4 ways to help stroke patients
regain the ability to walk
Mindy Bridges is exploring 6 the link between language
acquisition and reading skills
KU School of Health Professions 8 researchers are collaborating
with scientists and institutions around the country and world
Heather Gibbs has created a 10 nutrition literacy tool that can
Focus on RESEARCH
Setting a course
for advancing
research
The KU School of Health
Professions is recognized for
its cutting-edge research and
passion for scientific inquiry.
We talked with Susan Carlson,
Ph.D., the school's associate
dean for research, about her
vision for growing research in
health professions.
Q: What are your primary
responsibilities as associate dean for research?
SC: Dean Akinwuntan charged me to work with our faculty and department chairs to increase our local, national and international recognition through an increase in extramural funding for research, scholarship and innovation and discovery. I work with institutional research leaders, participating on faculty search committees, encouraging new faculty in partnership with their departmental chairs to develop their plan for scholarship, and working with our current faculty to ensure they have the resources needed to start or maintain a successful research program. Q: What excites you about the research that is going on within the KU School of Health Professions?
SC: Our faculty stepped up to the plate when the dean made increasing the amount of extramural research dollars a top priority, and this has really born fruit in 2018 (see chart on page 3). While I can't take the credit for this, it clearly demonstrates that our faculty are in a unique place to address important health-related questions.
Q: Are there areas you would like to nurture and grow as the leader of research for the school?
SC: This year I began meeting with new faculty hires to help them stay on track with their research plan so they can meet the goals they and their chair have for promotion. There is also still a need to nurture some of our existing faculty and to advocate for the time and resources they need to be successful. We started that in a small way with our Grantsmanship meetings where we have mainly critiqued specific aims pages. I want to expand that and move to full grant reviews. I’m trying to be better informed about entrepreneurship opportunities so I can be of support there in future.
Q: What resources does KU Medical Center offer to researchers in the School of Health Professions? SC: The single most important resource KU Medical Center offers is a fantastically collaborative faculty across all three schools. Our faculty not only get their own grants as principal investigators, but they serve as key personnel on grants from other schools and other departments within or school. We are also fortunate to have Frontiers, which is KU Medical Center's Clinical and
Translational Science Institute. Frontiers does a great job of connecting our researchers to resources and facilitating collaboration.
Q: What are your research goals for the School of Health Professions over the next five years?
SC: I'm sure I'm expected to say something like “we will double our research funding and publications." I’d rather say that we will continue to build our research culture because with that will come the quantifiable outcomes the dean has charged me with.
Q: Because the school is so eclectic, is working with so many different disciplines a challenge?
SC: Really that is the fun part. In our Grantmanship meetings, we have researchers from all disciplines weighing in. This year we have grants related to prenatal programming, prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, language development, and rehabilitation following stroke as well as many other topics. Fortunately, I don’t have to be an expert in all of these fields.
2017-2018 KU School of Health Professions external grant awards
Researcher
Department
Sponsor/Collaborator Study Name
Amount
1 Abiodun Akinwuntan Office of the Dean NIH A low-cost portable driving simulator $10,000
2 Sandra Billinger Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science NIH/University of Southern California
Model-based cerebrovascular markers extracted from
hemodynamic data for diagnosing MCI or AD and predicting disease progression
$2,518,691
3 Sandra Billinger Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science NIH/University of Cincinnati High-intensity interval training to recover walking post-stoke:
HIT-STROKE trial $822,496
4 Mindy Bridges Hearing & Speech NIH/Arizona State University Reading comprehension in monolingual and bilingual children $446,691
5 Mindy Bridges Hearing & Speech NIH Mononlingual and bilingual reading comprehension in middle and high
school students $2,231,985
6 Susan Carlson Dietetics & Nutrition NIH Supplements Identification of dietary supplements practices and nutrients intake $153,000
7 Susan Carlson Dietetics & Nutrition NIH Supplements Enhancing recruitments and retention of underrepresented
pregnant women $153,000
8 Hannes Devos Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science National Multiple Sclerosis Society Use of pupillometry to assess cognition in multiple sclerosis $44,000
9 Hannes Devos Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences NIH Do physiological changes reflect early cognitive impairment in
pre-clinical Alzheimer's disease? $30,000
10 Holly Hull Dietetics & Nutrition NIH Growth and adiposity in newborns: The influence of prenatal DHA
supplementation $2,049,605
11 Patricia Kluding Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences NIH/Langone Medical Center Reversing diabetic peripheral neuropathy through exercise $183,583
12 Wen Liu Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science NIH Benefits of walking exercise in non-ambulatory stroke survivors $382,500
13 Wen Liu Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science NIH Assessment of a mind-body intervention in patients with PD $382,500
14 Robin Maser Clinical Laboratory Sciences Polycystic Kidney Database Foundation Regulation of polycystin-1-mediated heterotrimeric G-protein signaling $160,000
15 Robin Maser Clinical Laboratory Sciences Department of Defense
Understanding polycystin-1 structure and function: Mechanistic clues from adhesion Class G protein coupled receptors 2
$297,521
16 Catherine Siengsukon Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science National Multiple Sclerosis Society
Assessing the feasibility of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia in individuals with MS with symptoms of insomnia
$44,000
17 Cheryl Skinner Respiratory Care &Diagnostic Science American Association for Respiratory Care Innovative pulmonary rehabilitation telehealth program for improving
COPD patient outcomes $45,080
Focus on RESEARCH
2017-2018 School of Health Professions intramural grant awards
Researcher Department Sponsor/Collaborator Study Name Amount
1 Sandra Billinger Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science SHPKUMC Frontiers Cerebrovascual response during moderate intensity exercise in people
post-stroke $20,000
2 David Burnett Respiratory Care and Diagnostic Science SHP/SOM Dietary modification’s impact on exercise induced bioconstriction $20,000
3 Debby Daniels Hearing & Speech SHP Ready, Set, Share a book! focus groups $5,000
4 Hannes Devos Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science SHP Task evoked pupillary response: Cognitive effort for breast cancer survivors $10,000
5 Heather Gibbs Dietetics & Nutrition SHP Measuring Nutrition Literacy $20,000
6 Heather Gibbs Dietetics & Nutrition SHPKUMC Frontiers Nutricity: Piloting an intervention upon parental and child nutrition literacy $20,000
7 Jessie Huisinga Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science SHPKUMC Frontiers Understanding how segmental control is related to stability during gait in fall risk
populations $20,000
8 Wen Liu Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science SHPKUMC Frontiers Assessment of a mind-body intervention with Patients with PD $10,000
9 Robin Maser Clinical Laboratory Sciences SHP Does mutation of the putative Stachel/Stalk sequence of polycystin-1 cause
polycystic kidney disease? $10,000 10 Robin Maser Clinical Laboratory Sciences SHPKUMC Frontiers Regulation of polycystin 1 mediated heterotrimeric G protein signaling $20,000
11 Lisa Mische Lawson Occupational Therapy SHPKUMC Frontiers Sensory enhanced aquatics $20,000
12 Catherine Siengsukon Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science SHP Examining the efficiency of CBT $10,000
13 Debra Sullivan/Neena Sharma Dietetics & Nutrition SHP Vitamin C supplementation in lumbar spine surgical patients $20,000
14 Hao Zhu Clinical Laboratory Sciences SHPKUMC Frontiers Targeting iron sensing and mitochondrial function for beta-cell health $20,000
TOTAL $225,000
Holly Hull, PhD, an associate professor of dietetics and nutrition, studies the impact prenatal and postnatal nutrition and environmental exposures on maternal and offspring health. Dr. Hull’s current NIH funded R01 examines how a high dose of prenatal fish oil, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, changes how much fat a baby accrues. Additionally, she has pilot funding from the NIH, working with collaborators at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Harvard, to understand how prenatal and postnatal exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals disrupts fetal fat accrual and postnatal fat accretion. She is also a PI on a sub-contract from the University of Arkansas on a NIH funded R01 to understand how growth patterns in infancy are related to obesity risk in childhood. In addition, Dr. Hull successfully piloted two interventions to prevent excessive weight gain during pregnancy; one being a high dietary fiber intervention. Studies funded by KUMC Frontiers are underway to understand how the microbiota changed with a fiber intervention, and relationships to weight gain and fat accrual. Dr. Hull is a standing member of the NIH study section Kidney, Nutrition, Obesity, and Diabetes (KNOD).
Researcher Spotlight
Helping stroke
survivors regain
their movement
and walk again
One of the main goals for
many people who have
suffered a stroke is to be able
to walk on their own. Health
care professionals agree that
exercise can play a big part
in post-stroke recovery, but
to this point, clinicians and
researchers alike are unsure
what the secret formula is in
terms of type, duration and
frequency of exercise that
will give the person the best
chance of recovering well
enough to walk on their own.
Sandra Billinger. Ph.D., PT, FAHA, is joining forces with researchers from the University of Cincinnati and the University of Delaware on a five-year R01 grant that will examine which dose – high-intensity or moderate-intensity —best promotes walking recovery in people with chronic stroke. Pierce Boyne, Ph.D., DPT, from Cincinnati is the principle investigator on the study and Darcy Reisman, Ph.D., PT, will be in charge in Delaware.
“We still don’t have definitive evidence that exercise facilitates walking recovery after stroke,” said Billinger, director of the REACH Laboratory at KU Medical Center who wrote the post-stroke exercise recommendations for the American Stroke Association. “The goal of this project is twofold: The primary aim is looking at exercise intensity; and the second question is the duration, or how many weeks are needed to benefit walking recovery.”
Researchers at the three sites are currently in the startup phase of the
study. Eventually, they will be looking for a total of 50 participants across the three sites. Study candidates need to be between 40 and 80 years old and must have had their strokes between six months and five years prior to the start of the trial. Participants need to be able to walk at least 10 meters using their assistive devices and with no human assistance. They also must be able to walk at least three minutes on a treadmill at a minimum of .3 mph. Their cardiovascular health must be stable. The exercise and functional testing will be done at the Clinical Translational Science Unit, and the study interventions will be conducted in the REACH Lab. Researchers will use treadmills with body weight-supporting harnesses for safety. Participants will take part in treadmill training three times a week. They will also do over-ground training before and after treadmill training and use special equipment to measure walking components such as difference in stride length.
Boyne’s published pilot data suggests there is an improvement in walking recovery at about four weeks of
high-intensity interval training. But researchers don’t know if the exercise training session goes longer, to like the 12-week duration of a typical cardiac rehab program, if participants will continue to show improvement. “We want to know if we see improvement at eight weeks but nothing at 12. Do we continue to see an improvement from baseline, to four weeks, to eight weeks, to 12?” Billinger said.
Finding the sweet spot for the type, intensity and duration of workouts may hold the key to better health and one day be part of an exercise prescription to help post-stroke survivors recover their ability to walk.
Billinger has headed a number of studies on exercise testing and interventions in the stroke population. In addition to receiving more than $3.34 million dollars in external research funding in 2017-18, Billinger was awarded $20,000 from the KU School of Health Professions and KU Medical Center Frontiers to support her research into stroke and exercise (see
chart on page 5).
Focus on RESEARCH
Mindy Bridges
is exploring the
relationship
between language
acquisition and
reading skills
Mindy Bridges, Ph.D.,
CCC-SLP, has always been
fascinated by the relationship
between language acquisition
and the development of
reading skills. As a result,
much of her research energy
has been directed toward
learning how strong language
skills help children in all
academic areas — especially
reading — giving them the
crucial readiness skills needed
to go to school.
“Almost all children learn the rules of language at an early age without explicit instruction. As children become better at decoding words, their language comprehension increasingly impacts reading comprehension,” said Bridges, who has worked as a speech-language pathologist in several settings over the years. “For example, we know that by third grade, children’s vocabulary and grammar skills — representing key contributors to language comprehension — contribute significantly more to their ability to read for meaning than decoding skills.”
Bridges, who joined the faculty in the Department of Hearing and Speech at the University of Kansas Medical Center in 2017, has been busy with a variety of research projects. She and colleague Debby Daniels, Ph.D., a clinical professor of hearing and speech at KU, recently completed a pilot study examining the effectiveness and feasibility of a
language-focused intervention program for preschool children in a Head Start program.
Currently, Bridges most prominent research is as co-investigator on an RO1 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The study is examining lower-grade level elementary
students to determine early predictors of reading comprehension. The study that is being conducted in conjunction with Arizona State University and Lancaster University.
“Our goals in this project are to identify early predictors of poor reading comprehension and to investigate
the changing structure of reading comprehension from primary grades to sixth grade,” Bridges said. “This will provide an evidence base from which to build new reading comprehension assessments, curricula, and
interventions.”
In the study, researchers are recruiting about 300 English-only speaking sixth
graders and roughly 300 bilingual Spanish-English speakers. At KU Medical Center, about 200 English speakers will be recruited and assessed from school districts in both Kansas and Missouri. The assessment includes a variety of measures including reading, language and cognition. A group of sixth graders, who Bridges has been working
“Our goals in this project are to identify
early predictors of poor reading
comprehension and to investigate
the changing structure of reading
comprehension from primary grades to
sixth grade.”
with since before they started school, will also be assessed.
Bridges has received a Notice of Award for a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She will be the principal investigator on the project titled “Monolingual and Bilingual Reading Comprehension in Middle and High School Students.”
Some of the measures/assessments will change. For example, older students are being asked to read and comprehend from a variety of sources instead of just one source, such as one chapter from a textbook. Also, there will be a much greater emphasis on the comprehension of expository text, whereas with young students, the emphasis is on narrative text.
Bridges believes that at the end of the day, her research will produce both theoretical and practical results. Because of the extensive amount of data collected, scholars will be able to assess multiple theoretical models in sixth graders, and among monolingual and bilingual populations. And they should be able to identify early predictors that can suggest later reading comprehension abilities. Bridges’ professional interests go beyond research and teaching and into the realm of leadership as part of a POWER movement taking hold throughout the country. An assistant professor, Bridges is a proud founding member of POWER: Promoting Opportunities for Women in Education Research, a national group formed to support women at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels who face similar challenges in research, advancement and service. The idea for POWER started to gel in 2015 when a group of friends with similar training backgrounds and comparable challenges in their careers met for dinner at a conference and began comparing notes. In 2017, the group met officially for the first time and began making plans on ways to add voices of female experts to the higher education conversation.
“I have been impressed at the level of female leadership and mentorship both in my department at KU Medical Center and at KU,” Bridges said. “Both chairs in the Intercampus Program in Communicative Disorders are women, and the former chair in Lawrence has risen to university-level leadership. It's great to see the advancement opportunities women in my program have received.”
Dietetics and Nutrition
doctoral student wins
research summit award
Nicholas Marchello, a doctoral student in the KU Department of Dietetics and Nutrition, represented the KU School of Health Professions at the 15th annual Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka, Kansas, on
March 27, 2018.
Marchello’s project was titled “Diet Quality During Weight Maintenance in Rural Breast Cancer Survivors.” Marchello said the key takeaway from his research is that breast cancer survivors who improve their diets while on a weight-loss program can maintain their eating habits after the program ends if they continue to receive education and encouragement. For his presentation, Marchello was given the KU Medical Center Award.
"The KU Medical Center Award is a really big deal for me," Marchello said. "It makes me feel like my research was well-received and that my research into improving and maintaining diet quality is an important area to focus efforts and funds. I'm appreciated and humbled by the honor."
The Capitol Graduate Research Summit takes place annually as a way to emphasize the role that graduate student research plays at the Kansas Board of Regents' institutions. Graduate researchers from KU Medical Center were joined by their peers from KU-Lawrence, Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Kansas State, Pittsburg State and Wichita State at the summit, State officials are invited to learn about a wide range of research, including the creation of gels to heal broken bones, and economic, agricultural and medical improvements for rural citizens.
KU School of Health Professions research collaboration
Focus on RESEARCH
Researchers from the KU School of Health Professions are collaborating with institutions
around the country and world on scientific exploration. Here are just a few of the
collaborations that have the potential to improve the lives of people across the globe.
Hannes Devos, Ph.D., an assistant professor the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, is collaborating with Maud Ranchet, Ph.D., with theFrench Institute of Science and Technology in Lyon on investigating changes in brain neural recruitment when individuals with Parkinson's disease engage in dual tasking. Devos is also working with researchers from the KU Alzheimer's Disease Center on studying biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease progression.
Hao Zhu, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, is working with Thomas Gorr, Ph.D., at the University of Zurich
Institute of Veterinary Physiology in Switzerland on the link between myoglobin and fatty acids in healthy and dysfunctional muscles and myocytes. Zhu is also collaborating with scientists in the KU Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology on mitochondrial function in oocytes.
Dave Burnett, Ph.D., RRT, AE-C, chair and assistant professor the Department of Respiratory Care Education, is collaborating with researchers in the KU Department of Dietetics and Nutrition and at the University of Kansas and Kansas State University on the role of non-pharmacological treatment on exercise induced bronchoconstriction in college students and student-athletes.
Robin Maser, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, is working with a researchers at St. John's University in New York on the effects of polycystin-1 mutations on polycystin ion channel complex function. Maser is also collaborating with scientists at the University of Kansas on computer simulated structure prediction of the cytosolic tail of polycystin-1.
Focus on RESEARCH
Heather Gibbs
has created a
nutrition literacy
tool designed
to assess health
knowledge
There's now an app to learn
more about a patient's
nutrition literacy.
When Heather Gibbs, Ph.D., discovered there were no reliable methods for testing a person’s ability to make healthy food choices, she decided to go develop one on her own. Now Gibbs is taking the Nutrition Literacy Assessment Tool (NLit) she created as a doctoral student, a step further and is developing a mobile smart phone application that should be consumer-ready later this fall.
“My goal in developing NLit has always been to improve practice,” said Gibbs, an assistant professor in the KU Department of Dietetics and Nutrition. “With the app, once a person finishes taking the NLit assessment, the app can generate an immediate score and interpretation. In theory, this would allow the clinician to immediately adjust the teaching message to fit the nutrition literacy level of the patient.”
The original version of NLit was born out of necessity. While practicing as an outpatient dietitian, including time with the Telehealth Clinic at KU Medical Center, Gibbs realized much of her time and energy were spent educating and counseling patients about the role diet could play in their disease therapy. But it was during her time later while teaching undergraduates that she realized there was no standardized method or device to measure of nutrition literacy.
Without a common methodology to establish a baseline of knowledge,
there was no meaningful way to look at the cause and effect of poor nutrition literacy.
Gibbs began creating her own nutrition literacy tool in earnest as part of her doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 2012. The
result was an assessment tool flexible enough to be adapted for a variety of populations, yet reliable enough to stand up to rigorous testing.
NLit looks at six subscales or focus areas: nutrition and health; energy sources in food; food label and numeracy; household food measurement; food groups; and
consumer skills. Researchers have found that scores on the NLit were strongly
and positively related to diet quality. As a way to validate the reliability of NLit, she worked with her department chair, Debra Sullivan, Ph.D., R.D., and fellow KU Medical Center faculty members Edward Ellerbeck, M.D., Byron Gajewski, Ph.D., and Chuanwu Zhang, MS, on a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior that examined nutrition literacy among 402 adults with chronic diseases.
"In my experience as a clinical educator and in higher education, I've found it's very useful to understand your audience in order to tailor the education to their specific needs," Gibbs said.
By developing the app, Gibbs hopes to give researchers another way to reach an even larger audience. She is working with Life Sciences Technologies to develop the app. Basically, there will be two categories of users: clinicians/ researchers and patients/study participants. The participants answer a battery of assessment questions on their smart phones and submit them electronically. The researcher/clinician
will be contacted via the app and can begin assessing the results.
In addition to its key clinical uses, the app has the potential to provide more data to researchers such as Gibbs so they can continue to amass more information to help people t healthy food choices. And because NLit already has a Spanish Language version
developed you might one day hear: hay una aplicación para eso!
"In my experience as a clinical educator
and in higher education, I've found it's
very useful to understand your audience
in order to tailor the education to their
specific needs."
A new chair for HIM
Rosann O'Dell has been named the new chair
of KU's Department of Health Information
Management
Rosann O'Dell, D.H.Sc., MS, RHIA, CDIP, was appointed chair of KU's Department of Health Information
Management on July 1, 2018. O'Dell joined the department in 2014 as clinical assistant professor.
An AHIMA-approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer, O'Dell brings diverse experiences in managing personnel, operations, and information systems in areas such as cancer registry, clinical classification, clinical documentation support, and release of information. Her past experience includes program management in continuing medical education and regulatory aspects of clinical research. She has served on institutional committees including HIPAA Privacy, HIPAA Security, oncology services, and clinical ethics. O'Dell earned a bachelor's degree in health information management from the University of Kansas in 2004, a master's in management from Friends University in 2005, followed by a graduate certificate in clinical health care ethics from Saint Louis University in 2009. She received her doctorate in health sciences with concentration in global health from A.T. Still University in 2012.
O'Dell's goals for the department include fostering a student-centric culture; expanding grassroots efforts to engage with alumni; and conducting a needs analysis to determine if there are any unmet continuing education needs in the health information management community and identifying if there are opportunities for KU's health information management program to serve more by fulfilling these potential needs.
KU School of Health
Professions holds faculty
collaboration forum
Tim Cowden speaks to KU School of Health Professions faculty
The KU School of Health Professions held its annual Faculty Collaboration Forum on June 22, 2018.
The keynote speaker for this year's event was Tim Cowden, President and CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council (KCADC), The council is a private, non-profit organization charged with representing the economic interests of the entire two-state, 18-county Greater Kansas City region.
In his address, Cowden discussed his experiences with transcending professional boundaries and the prominent role played by the KCADC in negotiating and coordinating bi-state initiatives, promoting the region as an appealing center for business and attracting a vibrant and diverse workforce.
Cowden said many of the challenges faced by the KCADC in coordinating efforts by separate entities, dissolving boundaries, enhancing collaborative opportunities, educating about other professions, and attracting a motivated and diverse workforce are similar to those faced by universities.
Following the keynote address, School of Health
Professions faculty participated in small group breakouts and a panel discussion focusing on team building and processes that support formation and growth of cohesive and productive interprofessional teams.
Office of the Dean
School of Health Professions MS 2007, 3901 Rainbow Blvd. Kansas City, KS 66160 [email protected] healthprofessions.kumc.edu
In this issue: Focus on research
Helping stroke patients regain movement
Researchers in physical therapy and rehabilitation science are studying the frequency, intensity, time and type of exercise
The relationship between language skills and
reading ability
Mindy Bridges is studying the relationship between language acquisition and the development of reading skills.
Assessing and improving nutrition literacy
Heather Gibbs has created a nutrition literacy tool designed to assess people's health knowledge.
