Heilbrunn Family Center for Research Nursing

The Heilbrunn Family Center for Research Nursing at The Rockefeller University is pleased to present the 2022 Beatrice Renfield Lecture, a live webinar featuring Sarah Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN. Dr. Szanton is the Patricia M. Davidson Health Equity and Social Justice Endowed Professor and Dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. In addition, she has an appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Szanton tests interventions to reduce health disparities among older adults. Her main research strands are aging in the community, the effects of financial strain on health, and structural racial discrimination and resilience. A number of years ago, while making house calls as a nurse practitioner to homebound, low-income elderly patients in West Baltimore, she noticed that their environmental challenges were often as pressing as their health challenges. Since then she co-developed the Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders (CAPABLE) program, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve mobility, reduce disability, decrease healthcare costs, and enable older adults to “age in place” and stay out of a nursing home. Dr. Szanton was a 2019 winner of the Heinz Award in the Human Condition category. She was selected as one of Next Avenue’s “Influencers in Aging,” a list of remarkable people who are changing how we age and think about aging in America. She has published more than 150 papers and been a principal investigator on more than $20 million in grants.

On March 22, Dr. Szanton will discuss the CAPABLE program, focusing on innovation, data to leverage change, and working with older adults and their physical and mental abilities so they are able to set their own goals. Topics will include the lessons learned from both home and driven visits. The presentation will conclude with recommendations that support older adults aging comfortably at home.

Dr. Szanton completed undergraduate work in African-American Studies at Harvard University and earned a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. In addition, she holds a nurse practitioner master's degree from the University of Maryland and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. She is core faculty at the Center on Aging and Health and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, and adjunct faculty with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation, the St. David's Foundation, and the AARP Foundation.

This lecture series is made possible by the generosity of The Beatrice Renfield Foundation. It is co-hosted by The Rockefeller University's Heilbrunn Family Center for  Research Nursing and the Women & Science Initiative.