ABOUT
Our lab began in 2017 when Dr. Denfeld joined the OHSU School of Nursing as an Assistant Professor. Her previous work as a PhD student at OHSU School of Nursing and as a Post-Doctoral Scholar at OHSU School of Medicine formed the foundation for her program of research centered on symptoms, physical frailty, and biomarkers in heart failure. After joining the SON faculty, Dr. Denfeld’s career development award, funded by the Oregon Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (K12HD043488; 2017-2020), catalyzed an important new focus area: sex differences in heart failure. Her study, generated new insights into sex differences in the phenotypes, mechanisms, and outcomes of physical frailty in heart failure. Key achievements from this work included: selection for the 2020 American Heart Association Martha N. Hill New Investigator Finalist Award, publication in the Emerging Investigator Series in Circulation: Heart Failure, and recognition as a Top Altmetric Paper for the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing in 2022.
Our first grant (R01NR019054; 2021-2026) focuses on identifying how and why symptoms change after a heart failure hospitalization. Our second grant (R21NR020059; 2023-2025) focuses on understanding how physical frailty is associated with symptom monitoring and management behaviors in heart failure.
We also have smaller on-going studies focused on methamphetamine-associated heart failure, sleep behaviors post-heart failure hospitalization, and sex differences in frailty in cardiovascular disease.
Since 2017, our lab has been funded by multiple funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Medical Research Foundation, the Hartford Center for Gerontological Nursing Excellence, and Sigma Theta Tau.
Notably, Dr. Denfeld received two grants through the NIH/National Institute of Nursing Research to advance our understanding of how biological and behavioral factors are associated with symptoms and frailty.