Today’s nurses do much more than what many people might think of as typical nursing duties, according to Lorraine Evangelista, the new associate dean of research for the UNLV School of Nursing. Evangelista, for instance, does research on cardiovascular health.
In her role as associate dean, she helps move nursing investigations and scholarship along to ensure projects are completed and funding secured. Through this position, she will help guide nursing research at UNLV for years to come.
An established and recognized figure in the nursing science world, Evangelista’s primary research consists of health literacy, designing and testing interventions to support healthy lifestyle behaviors through better nutrition and increased physical activity; she’s raised more than $10 million from the National Institutes of Health throughout her career for her work.
Within this research domain is a focus on cardiovascular health. For instance, Evangelista studied the effects of a high-protein diet on patients' clinical outcomes with heart failure. “Findings from this clinical trial have generated much discussion among clinicians and researchers,” she said. “Our data were among the first to debunk the obesity paradox, where being overweight or obese in patients with heart failure was always reported to be beneficial.” She is among the first to investigate the benefits of digital health technologies to support self-management of patients with chronic heart failure, as well as among the first to document time lapse from when heart failure symptoms began to the emergency room. “This information changed how we teach patients to manage their symptoms,” she said, “and has decreased the incidence of hospital readmission.”
Additionally, Evangelista received a U.S. Fulbright Award in 2017 to expand her health care research to study Filipino lifestyle behavior and cardiovascular risk factors in underserved communities. Evidence from this study has been used to construct programs and policies for health care access and health promotion that target low-income communities in the Philippines. The common thread through all Evangelista’s investigations is how they are prioritizing cardiac health. “Through my involvement in professional organizations,” she said, “I have helped shape the research agenda, keeping technological advancements in patients with heart failure at the forefront.”
Evangelista sees nurse scientists as a critical role in health, a role that has grown over the years. “Nurses were originally categorized as non-professionals, task-oriented, and could be replaced by anyone who knows how to care for others,” she recalled. “As a result, nursing often borrowed its science from other disciplines. But with the training of nurse scientists, nursing soon started generating its science to guide practice and not rely on other disciplines. Over time, nurses were recognized as professionals who had an equal impact on patients and families as other health care providers/partners.” She added that it’s imperative the various types of nurses (practitioner, bedside, educators) work together to create more opportunities to integrate more nurse science into health policy.
“The whole purpose of translational research is to get us from basic science research, clinical trials to test the effectiveness and safety of interventions, dissemination of evidence to support best practices, and implementation science that will impact communities globally.”
