Teresa has interest in non-pharmacological symptom management for adults with chronic pain who use opioid medications. Recommendations based on cross-sectional work include integrative treatment of pain symptoms via improving sleep quality, increasing self-efficacy, treating depressive symptoms, and managing overweight status. Teresa has studied prevalence of food insecurity among food bank users in Eastern Washington and relationships between food insecurity and health conditions such as chronic pain, depression, and overweight. Teresa has also explored descriptives of adults with chronic pain who use opioid medications and cannabis to treat pain.

Currently, Teresa is studying the nursing population to understand the impact of 12-hour shifts (both day and night workers) on sleep, stress, ability to take breaks, and diet. Her interest in the nursing population is both personal (as a nurse herself) and scientific in that studying relationships between health symptoms in a healthy population may be more generalizable to a sick population, specifically adults with chronic pain using opioid medications.