Center for Health Equity and Systems Research
Established in 2023, the Center for Health Equity and Systems Research (CHESR) at Rutgers School of Nursing provides a nexus for rigorous research that elucidates the harmful effects of systematic inequities on health outcomes and quantifies the impact of approaches designed to mitigate them.
Nursing Science to Advance Equity
In keeping with the funding priorities of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), CHESR advances research that furthers health promotion, equitable health outcomes, and equitable access to high-quality health care. Also recognizing the need for a robust nursing workforce, CHESR embraces Nursing Health Services Research, testing differing models of nursing care delivery as well as interventions aimed at enhancing nurse resiliency and reducing occupational burnout.
Mission
Our mission to advance health equity and health systems research by generating new knowledge and practical applications within healthcare systems. As a multidisciplinary hub, CHESR engages with communities and external partners to understand and address inequities in health care access, delivery, and outcomes through a systems-level lens. Its work explores how factors such as social determinants of health, healthcare policies, healthcare environments, and system structures contribute to disparities in outcomes for patients, providers, and communities. CHESR aims to identify and implement interventions that promote equity throughout the healthcare continuum. It also offers specialized training, mentorship, and professional development opportunities for faculty, students, and staff.
Vision
Our vision is to gain international recognition for the generation of evidence aimed at reducing health disparities, improving the health outcomes of marginalized populations, and supporting high-quality patient care across the care continuum.
Research Goals
- Reduce and eliminate the health care gap due to systemic and structural inequities to ensure all individuals have a fair and just opportunity to achieve their full health potential.
- Identify effective strategies to enhance health and quality of life by targeting the social and environmental conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, and age.
- Confront persistent health challenges at the population level that disproportionately affect groups with shared social, economic, or demographic characteristics.
- Promote health and prevent disease across the full continuum of prevention, from primordial to tertiary levels.
- Develop innovative models of care to address clinical, organizational, and policy-level challenges within health systems.
- Generate evidence to inform best practices and policy, advancing the health of the nation and promoting equitable care. Lead and transform the field of health equity and health systems research to shape a more just and effective future in health care.
CHESR Research Four Support Cores
CHESR research support cores are centralized, shared research resources that provide researchers with access to specialized instruments, technologies, services, and expert consultation. They are designed to enhance research productivity, facilitate collaboration, and make advanced technologies and expertise accessible to a broader research community. CHESR has four Cores, including:
- Administrative and Research Support (led by Dr. Beth Savage)
- Research Study Designs and Methods (led by Dr. Olga Jarrin)
- Data Management, Informatics, and Biostatistics (led by Dr. Haiqun Lin)
- Community Engagement, Implementation, and Dissemination (led by Dr. Karen D’Alonzo)
CHESR Research Work Groups
CHESR research work groups are focused collaborative teams that bring together researchers with shared interests and expertise to advance specific areas of health equity and health systems research. These groups serve as platforms for exchanging knowledge, generating new ideas, and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. Each work group includes a core set of researchers who meet regularly to discuss ongoing and emerging research projects, methodologies, collaborative opportunities, and potential funding sources. Currently, CHESR hosts four work groups, including:
- Population and Community Health Research (led by Drs. Julie Blumenfeld and Login George)
- Health Systems and Models of Care Research (led by Drs. Pamela de Cordova and Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins)
- Prevention and Intervention Research (led by Drs. John Nelson and Leorey Saligan)
- Education Research (led by Drs. Shira Birnbaum and Dione Sandiford)
CHESR Pilot Grant Program
CHESR’s pilot funding program promotes short-term pilot/feasibility research projects focused on health equity and/or health systems. The pilot funding intends to position investigators to be competitive for extramural research funding. Our 2025 to 2026 awardees are:
- Drs. Julie Blumenfeld and Kathleen Horan: Project title Language of Care: A Community Partnership Model for Culturally Responsive Nursing Education
- Dr. Keesha Roach: Project title Bridging the Gap: Focus-Group-Informed, Feasibility and Acceptability of an Equity-Centered SCD Transition Program for Emerging and Young Adults
- Dr. Cho-Hee Shrader: Project title Project SNATCHED: Study of Social Networks and Neighborhoods Through Technology-Centered Health Equity Research Embracing Diversity in Newark
- Dr. Daria Waszak: Project title Maximizing the productivity of the part-time, per-diem, and unemployed nursing workforce in New Jersey: Flexible work strategies to expand patient care access and equity
Inspiring Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Recognizing that the delivery of equitable care must be grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration and teamwork, CHESR provides an infrastructure for research-focused faculty to collaborate with other centers within and housed at the School of Nursing. An example is the School of Nursing’s François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center, which has led programmatic grants and contracts aimed at mitigating health inequities and risks since 1987. Through collaborations, CHESR is adding new evidence-based research to existing and highly regarded health care equity programs.
“Multiple opportunities exist to design meaningful, collaborative research studies to discover bold new ways to improve health outcomes for individuals and communities who are at greatest risk for health inequities.”
— Andrea Norberg, DNP, MS, RN
Building Expertise to Influence Change
As one of the few mentoring and training centers in the nation for conducting Nursing Health Services Research, CHESR boasts tenured faculty members who have completed formal training in this specialized arena and have established highly successful, funded programs of research that influence policy. CHESR provides a collaborative space for faculty and student scholars to expand their knowledge and skills while developing and testing differing models of nursing care delivery and nursing workforce interventions.
Center Leadership
Pamela de Cordova, PhD, RN-BC
Associate Professor and Faculty Researcher for the NJCCN
Co-Director
Dr. Pamela de Cordova’s research aims to improve nurse, patient, and resident outcomes within hospitals and nursing homes. She is deeply committed to creating the necessary evidence to drive policy changes, ensuring that nurses have the resources to deliver high-quality care to their patients while simultaneously ensuring that nurses have support for their own well-being.
Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins, PhD, RN, FAAN
Associate Professor (Tenured) and Associate Dean of the Division of Nursing Science
Co-Director
Dr. Thomas-Hawkins is a nursing workforce researcher, and her research focuses on the impact of nurse staffing, adequacy of nursing care processes, workload, and work environment factors on patient safety and nurse outcomes. Her current work is focused on the impact of workplace racism on nurses’ well-being and job-related outcomes across practice settings.
Angela Starkweather, PhD, ACNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN
Dean and Professor
Member
As an adult acute care nurse practitioner and nurse scientist, Dr. Starkweather has an ongoing program of research focused on elucidating the biopsychosocial mechanisms of pain and other distressing conditions, developing multi-level interventions to improve health, quality of life, and health equity, and implementing research and evidence into practice and systems of care. Dr. Starkweather has been continuously NIH-funded over the past decade amassing over $20M in research support, has over 200 peer-reviewed publications, is editor of three books, and co-editor of Topics in Pain Management. She serves on the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses Clinical Practice Guidelines board, the American Academy of Nursing’s Genomic Nursing and Health Outcomes Expert Panel and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Genomics and Precision Health Roundtable. Dr. Starkweather has been a member and chair of various NIH and Department of Defense study sections over her career.
Join Us
Members, affiliate members, and their guests/collaborators have access to:
- Private and group mentorship sessions on research design and data analyses
- Collaborative, interdisciplinary research opportunities
- Modest, competitive intramural funding for pilot studies
- Information on funding resources
- Seminars and lectures, ranging from one to three hours in length