The University of Rhode Island College of Nursing welcomes Research Professor Kimberly Arcoleo to the College for the fall 2020 semester, adding a researcher, educator and public health expert who brings with her a wealth of research experience and funding. Learn about one of the College’s newest professors.
Education: Ph.D. in health services research, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; Master’s degree in public health, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; Bachelor’s degree in biology, University of Buffalo.
Experience: Arcoleo comes to the URI College of Nursing after a year as principal investigator at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Previously, she served as associate professor and associate dean for research at the University of Rochester School of Nursing, associate professor and associate dean for research at Ohio State University College of Nursing, and associate professor at Arizona State University, where she also served as director of the Master’s in Clinical Research Management program.
Research focus: Arcoleo’s focus is on closing the health disparity gap for low-income children with asthma. She brings with her to URI a $2.77 million grant to evaluate a program she’s been working on for several years with her clinical collaborators at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. More than 25 percent of school-aged children have one or more chronic health conditions such as asthma, and school nurses are responsible for coordinating care management with youth and their caregivers. Yet many school districts facing budget issues have cut full-time nurses. To narrow the gap, the School-Based Asthma Therapy (SBAT) program was developed in Rochester, NY, and includes Arcoleo and her colleagues have created School-Based Asthma Therapy, which includes directly observed administration of asthma controller medications in school.
The original researchers found SBAT enhanced asthma self-management, and improved adherence to daily, effective preventive asthma care, increasing symptom-free days. Over the last seven years, Arcoleo and her team have worked to implement t and expand the SBAT program to more than 900 students in 288 schools in Columbus, Ohio.
“The goal of this work is to improve the reach to students and effectiveness of asthma management outcomes, be broadly adopted among schools and school districts, be implemented with high quality and at a low cost, and be maintained within the schools and homes of children with asthma,” Arcoleo wrote in a project summary. Her funded research project is now evaluating the SBAT program to discover whether the success found in Rochester in tightly controlled clinical trials can be repeated when implemented in the “real world,” potentially leading to fewer ER visits and hospitalizations, and improved performance in the classroom. She plans to create a suite of resources for school administrators and clinicians to implement the SBAT program, and develop policy statements encouraging increased availability of school nurses to care for students.
“My theory is that if we keep these kids healthy, they are sleeping better at night, and thus they are able to pay attention more during the day, which hopefully will translate into better grades and fewer disciplinary actions,” Arcoleo said.
Arcoleo also plans to culturally adapt the SBAT program for children and adults with asthma living in the rural southeastern areas of the Navajo reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. Residents there face huge disparities in access to healthcare, screening, and optimal clinical management of asthma.
Teaching focus: As a public health and statistics expert, Arcoleo expects to teach classes around research design and ethics, and statistics.
Why URI?: “I was looking for the right fit to continue my research in an academic setting. I love teaching and mentoring students and early career researchers. I also love building things and am excited to be a part of reinvigorating the research enterprise, which I know is a priority for the URI College of Nursing,” Arcoleo said. “I’m able to bring both research experience and administrative experience to the College to help take our research to the next level.
“I have been so impressed with the level of scientific inquiry and enthusiasm that I see with everyone in the College. And the spirit of collaboration I see is really exciting to me. I haven’t even been there yet and it feels like home,” Arcoleo continued. “It’s an exciting opportunity where I can bring a lot of wisdom, expertise and technical skills to be able to help other professors and students. I’ve always been in schools of nursing on purpose even though I’m not a nurse. In health services research, we get trained very differently, we learn different skills, but they’re very complimentary to the training Nursing PhDs get. It’s been a great marriage between public health and nursing. I think that’s another reason why at URI I feel like I can really make some significant contributions to the mission of the College of Nursing.”
Future plans: “Lots of grant writing,” Arcoleo said, including the Navajo project, with plans to submit an application for funding to screen, diagnose and treat people with asthma in the Navajo Nation via an adaptation of the SBAT program paired with a mobile asthma clinic. In collaboration with URI Professor Jennifer Mammen, the researchers are exploring an opportunity to bring telehealth to the rural southeast areas of the Navajo reservation in partnership with the FCC.
“Dr. Mammen and I are also working on several other projects targeting an integrated smartphone-based telehealth intervention paired with clinical decisions support, which is fully integrated into the electronic health record that she developed. We hope to test it in rural and urban community practices.”
Another grant will examine the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral skills building program for school-age children with co-morbid asthma and anxiety/depression.