Donna Zucker,RN, PhD,FAAN is an Associate Professor of Nursing. During her tenure, she has focused her research on symptom identification and management of adverse events in person with hepatitis C particularly those in treatment. At UMASS AMHERST she has developed an expertise in two areas: communicable disease prevention and behavioral modification for persons with substance abuse. The populations she works with are the homeless, incarcerated and those at high risk for acquiring hepatitis, HIV and return to substance abuse. As part of this work, she participates in the following professional clinical organizations: the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the International Nurses Society on Addiction, The Labyrinth Connection of Western MA, and MA Viral Hepatitis Coalition. RESEARCH: Current research is focused on decreasing the disparity between available screening and treatment for HIV and HCV, and access by high risk persons who are homeless, incarcerated and actively recovering. She and her collaborators hope to provide an innovative, cost effective, multi test point of care screening device to reduce barriers to access to treatment and wellness. Ongoing work continues in measuring biomarkers for stress response in offenders before and after participating in labyrinth walking, and measuring differences in outdoor and indoor labyrinth walking.
Articles
Labyrinth Walking in Corrections, Journal of Addictions Nursing (2012)
A 6 week labyrinth walking program was pilot tested in a correctional setting and goals...
Mobile Outreach Strategies for Screening Hepatitis and HIV in High Risk Populations, Public Health Nursing (2011)
Objectives: To screen, counsel and offer hepatitis A and B vaccination for subjects at high...
An Intervention to Prevent Symptoms Associated with Hepatitis C: A Pilot Study, Applied Nursing Research (2010)
The objectives of this study were to (a) pilot test instruments measuring fatigue and quality...
Peer education for Hepatitis C prevention, Gastroenterology Nursing (2009)
The purpose of this article is to describe a model of education about hepatitis C...
Contributions to Books
How to Do Case Study Research, Teaching Research Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2009)
Presentations
Labyrinth Walking & Quality of Life in High Risk Substance Abusers: A Mixed Methods Study (with Amy Sharma), International Nurses in Substance Abuse Conference (2010)
Mobile Outreach for Hepatitis C and HIV in Western Massachusetts (with Jeung Choi and Emily Gallagher), Digestive Disease Week 2009 (2009)
Poster Presentation