AMERICAN NURSES FOUNDATION AWARDS MARTHA GRACE CROMEENS

In September, Hillman scholar Martha Grace Cromeens was awarded a grant of $9,999 through the Virginia Kelley Fund at American Nurses Foundation (ANF) to further her research in endometriosis. Cromeens’ research interests include legal and health care systems, with an emphasis on issues in delayed diagnosis of endometriosis.

This grant will enable her and her team to map pathways of diagnosis of endometriosis using qualitative interview and analysis informed by a life course perspective, and then determine factors and symptoms shared among women who perceive the time to diagnosis as timely and those who perceive the time as delayed.  As reported by UNC – Chapel Hill’s press department:

“In her abstract, Cromeens explains that the high bar for definitive diagnosis, surgical assessment with histological confirmation, leaves women without access to care with longer delays in diagnosis. Women of lower socioeconomic status (SES) and minority races have been underrepresented in endometriosis research, and although there have been studies to examine the experiences of women with endometriosis and delay in diagnosis, there is a large gap in the literature regarding the diagnostic pathways women travel and the pre-diagnostic period especially among lower SES and non-white women.”

Cromeens will lead a team in this study through August 2020 that will include Suzanne Thoyre, PhD, RN, FAAN, Kathleen Knafl, PhD, FAAN, Erin Carey, MD, MSCR, and Whitney Robinson, PhD, MSPH.