Robin Liston, M.P.H., has joined the UAMS Translational Research Institute as executive director.

Liston was previously assistant administrative director at Frontiers: University of Kansas Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Kansas City, Kansas.

As executive director, Liston oversees all TRI staff and services to UAMS researchers and will serve as a liaison to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsor for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program.

“After an extensive search with many excellent candidates, we are excited to have Robin as part of our team,” said TRI Director Laura James, M.D. “Robin’s diverse skillset developed over the last 18 years in research management helped set her apart. Her proven leadership within a CTSA Program will ensure the highest degree of efficiency and professionalism in our delivery of resources and services to all UAMS-affiliated investigators.”

The Translational Research Institute is supported by NIH/NCATS CTSA UL1 TR003107.

LITTLE ROCK – Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) will use a $228,000 federal grant to test telehealth as a way to improve Arkansas’ death rate among pregnant women, which ranks fifth nationally.

Led by UAMS’ Hari Eswaran, Ph.D., the research team will focus on remote health monitoring of pregnant women in rural areas with few health providers or resources. The goal is to determine if remote health monitoring can improve care for rural pregnant women with high blood pressure.

The one-year grant is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The funding was awarded as a supplement to UAMS’ NCATS-funded Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA).

Laura James, M.D., is principal investigator of the CTSA and director of the UAMS Translational Research Institute, whose work is supported by the five-year, $24.2 million award UL1 TR003107.

Statistics show that Arkansas has 44.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births annually. The national average is 29.6 deaths.

The team will recruit 50 pregnant women to test whether patient care can be improved using the combined systems of:

• Telemedicine via interactive video with UAMS maternal-fetal specialists
• Remote health monitoring (for example, blood pressure rates shared electronically from participants’ homes)
• The UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation Call Center. The study’s remote patient monitoring system will become part of the institute’s existing rural telemedicine clinic and call center model for monitoring blood pressure in pregnancy.

“This is a critical health issue for us,” said Eswaran, a professor in the College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “No other developed countries have maternal mortality rates as high as Arkansas, and we know that lack of access to care is a significant factor.”

In the United States, severe maternal illness is on the rise, affecting about 52,000 pregnant women at delivery every year. According to a CDC report, the severe maternal illness rate during delivery increased almost 200% from 1993 to 2014. This increase is caused by increased rates of blood transfusion, acute renal (kidney) failure, respiratory (breathing) distress syndrome and cardiac (heart) disease.

Severe maternal illnesses are expected to continue to grow because women are becoming pregnant later in life, increasing pre-pregnancy obesity, pre-existing chronic medical conditions and cesarean deliveries, Eswaran said. Rates are also much higher among minority women and women from rural areas. Likewise, maternal death rates are higher for racial minorities and poorer populations.

“By identifying these at-risk women early in their pregnancy, we can potentially help provide timely medical care using telehealth technology,” Eswaran said. “This would help prevent illness and death, shorten hospital stays and reduce health care costs.”

A UAMS-community partnership has garnered two grants for community and backyard gardens and energy efficiency projects.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a one-year $100,000 grant for developing a network of gardens to improve access to local foods for low-income communities of color in central Arkansas. The grant will also fund education programs and initiatives to promote urban agriculture, and will be evaluated by the UAMS Office of Community-Based Public Health.

Another $10,000 was awarded by Climate Reality to increase sustainability through backyard gardens and energy efficiency.

The grants resulted from a partnership that involves the College of Public Health Office of Community-Based Public Health, the Translational Research Institute Community Engagement Program, and community partner Arkansas Interfaith Power and Light. Other partners include the University of Arkansas Business Innovations Clinic and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Farm to School Program.

TRI Community Engagement Program Manager Rachel Hale worked with Arkansas Interfaith Power and Light’s Jimmy Parks, Dr.P.H., garden manager and Scharmel Roussel, executive director, to develop plans and apply for project funding.

The funding, which will provide volunteer and part-time internship opportunities for UAMS students , was applauded by Kate Stewart, M.D., director of the Office of Community-Based Public Health in the College of Public Health, and director of the Translational Research Institute’s Community Engagement Program.

“These exciting projects will engage our students as volunteers in their community gardens,” Stewart said. “It will also help them evaluate projects they are doing with community members to increase the use of backyard gardens.”

Projects will be focused in low-income central Arkansas communities of color living with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, especially the elderly, children, and veterans with high rates of food insecurity, high rates of chronic illness, and disproportionately high utility bills.

Activities to improve food security and help communities adapt to a changing climate will include:

• Supporting community members in starting and maintaining backyard gardens and increasing access to energy efficient items and information.
• Providing education about plant-rich diets, importance of local food, climate change and health, and energy conservation.
• Supporting existing community gardens to provide excess food to the UAMS 12th Street Health and Wellness Center and other food pantries.
• Mentoring youth and young adults interested in becoming urban farmers.

This month’s TRIbune newsletter features the new Rural Research Network, an intra-institutional partnership that leverages the infrastructure of UAMS Regional Programs and its regional campuses.

The network will help TRI meet its mission of helping UAMS more effectively address chronic health conditions among rural underrepresented populations.

Read The TRIbune

In this new video, UAMS researcher Jessica Snowden, M.D., chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease in the College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics, explains why she was thrilled to consult a group of teenagers about her study recruitment materials.

Snowden, who needed feedback from those in her target audience, was the recipient of a free service provided by TRI’s Community Engagement Program. TRI offers all UAMS-affiliated researchers a one-time, two-hour Community Review Board (CRB) made up of participants whose life experiences are relevant to the study.

To assist Snowden, the Community Engagement team recruited Little Rock high school students who had recently graduated from TRI’s Community Scientist Academy.  

She said the CRB “was insanely helpful” in more effectively recruiting asthmatic children for a multi-site vitamin D study.

Snowden is also co-principal investigator of the NIH-funded IDeA (Institutional Development Awards Program) States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network Data Coordinating and Operations Center. The program directs clinical operations for trial implementation and professional development across a 17-state NIH-funded research group.

Watch the video to learn more about this service.