CCDOR Investigators

• Hanna E. Bloomfield (formerly Rubins) is interested in preventive cardiology with an emphasis on epidemiology and management of lipid disorders. Her work includes clinical trials, outcomes studies, and translation of evidence into clinical practice.
  
  
• Diana Burgess is pursuing a research agenda designed to understand and ameliorate disparities in healthcare, which incorporates patient-level, provider-level and system-level factors. Her research draws heavily on theory and research findings from social psychology. She has a particular interest in understanding disparities in the context of preventive care and pain management.
  
  
• Kristine Ensrud studies the epidemiology and prevention of chronic disease with a focus on osteoporosis prevention and treatment.
  
  
• Howard Fink studies the epidemiology and outcomes of osteoporosis and fractures; conducts systematic reviews to evaluate treatments for common urologic conditions; and most recently has begun studying exercise and chiropractic care for treatment of chronic low back pain.
  
  
• Steven Fu is interested in smoking cessation and tobacco-related health disparities. His research is focused on identifying best practices for improving the delivery and utilization of tobacco dependence treatments among diverse and disadvantaged populations.
  
  
• Joan Griffin focuses on evaluating the effects of stress and coping on health, health behavior, and use of health services. Specifically she is interested in the intersections of paid and unpaid work on health and behavior. For example she is currently studying how the work of informal caregiving affects caregiver, family and care recipient health. She is also interested in specific sources of stress, such as poor health literacy, that may act as barriers to initiate and maintain healthy behaviors, including cancer screening.
  
  
• Hildi Hagedorn is a clinical psychologist and the Implementation Research Coordinator for the Substance Use Disorders Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (SUD-QUERI). Her research is currently focused on implementation of best-practice recommendations for the identification and treatment of substance use disorders.
  
  
• Jim Hodges (biostatistician) provides statistical support for Center projects. In his other life at the University of Minnesota Division of Biostatistics, he provides statistical support to various projects in the Academic Health Center and at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation and does research in statistical methods, specifically hierarchical and other richly-parameterized models.
  
  
• Frank Lederle is interested in optimizing diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in the primary care of older men with a particular emphasis on the diagnosis, management, and epidemiology of abdominal aortic aneurysms. His research primarily involves large scale clinical trials and technology assessment.
  
  
• Maureen Murdoch focuses on studying the intersection of behavior, mental health, physical health, and health care utilization. She also is interested in improving survey technology and developing and validating scales for survey research.
  
  
• David Nelson (biostatistician) is developing stepwise Bayes theory with applications in finite population sampling and nonparametric statistics as well as statistical theory for covariate reduction and selection bias control in the analysis of observational studies.
  
  
• Kristin Nichol focuses on the epidemiology and prevention of vaccine preventable disease, with an emphasis on the impact of influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations on health outcomes and resource utilization. In this area she conducts clinical trials, health outcomes studies, and economic analyses.
  
  
• Siamak Noorbaloochi (biostatistician) is working on Bayesian least biased inference rules providing a unified theory for most powerful testing and unbiased estimation. In addition to providing statistical support for Center projects, Dr. Noorbaloochi is also working on inferential procedures for left truncated right censored ordinal count data.
  
  
• Melissa Partin is a behavioral scientist with interests and expertise in patient-directed health promotion and decision support interventions, shared decision making, survey research, and implementation. Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions to promote compliance with best practices in the area of cancer prevention and control.
  
  
• Melissa Polusny is a staff clinical psychologist in the Posttraumatic Stress Recovery Program at the Minneapolis VAMC and associate professor in the of of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Her research interests focus on identifying risk and resilience factors associated with mental health outcomes in OIF/OEF veterans, with a special emphasis on the longitudinal course of military-related PTSD.
  
  
• Adam Powell's research focuses on applying his background in social psychology, social marketing and organizational behavior to facilitate the implementation of evidence based best practices. Adam is currently working closely with the VA’s Office of Quality and Performance to develop strategies, tools, and measurement systems to improve cancer screening and care.
  
  
• Thomas Rector's research interests are focused on evaluation of pharmaceutical use and interventions for patients with heart failure, development of outcome prediction models, measurement of patient-oriented outcomes such as quality of life and communication of evidence from clinical trials to patients.
  
  
• Nina A. Sayer is a clinical psychologist and a health services researcher whose work focuses on post-deployment health including PTSD, disability, combat-related polytrauma and unmet service needs.
  
  
• Michele Spoont is a health and neuropsychologist at the Minneapolis VAMC. Dr. Spoont is funded through VA HSR&D to understand what factors contribute to mental health treatment participation and adherence among veterans with PTSD.
  
  
• Erin Warshaw is Chief of Dermatology at the Minneapolis VAMC and is interested in applications of telemedicine in dermatology.
  
  
• Timothy Wilt has a research agenda which involves conducting clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta-analysis to evaluate the effects of health care interventions on outcomes in adults with chronic diseases. Dr. Wilt primarily focuses on the epidemiology, prevention and treatment of common urologic diseases frequently managed by primary care providers.