Assistant Professors Pamela Kulbok and Mary O’Laughlen and Professor Patricia Hollen, all from the UVA Nursing faculty, recently received $1.2 million in research grants from the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation (VTSF), UVA announced today in a press release.
Kulbok, who has been researching adolescent tobacco use for much of her career, received $600,000 to be used during a three-year period to continue her research on smoking prevention among children and adolescents in rural tobacco-growing areas. Because the highest rates of tobacco use in the United States today come from tobacco-growing areas, Kulbok is investigating the ecological, cultural and contextual factors at work in that situation. She hopes to develop intervention and prevention programs specific to this type of community.
O’Laughlen and Hollen will also receive $200,000 per year for three years from VTSF for their research study, “A Decision Aid to Reduce Substance Use Risk Behaviors in Medically At-Risk Adolescents: Targeting Persistent Asthma,” to investigate, in part, why substance abuse is higher among asthmatic adolescents than among other teenagers.
Studying about 240 adolescents, O’Laughlen and Hollen will complete their research at the UVA Medical Center, Virginia Commonwealth University and Inova Pediatric Center in Falls Church.
