Anita Fernander, Ph.D.

(University of Miami, 2000)

103 Medical Behavioral Science Building
Phone: (859) 323-4679
e-mail: afern2@uky.edu

Research Description

Dr. Fernander has a Ph.D. in Clinical Health Psychology from the University of Miami and has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Science at the University of Kentucky since the Fall of 2002.  Dr. Fernander’s research focuses on health disparities, particularly among African Americans.  She examines the influence of ethno-culturally specific constructs such as acculturative and race-related stress and John Henry active coping on risk factors (i.e., blood pressure and smoking) for cardiovascular disease and cancer.  Most recently, Dr. Fernander has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to examine psychosocial factors related to tobacco use and nicotine metabolism among African American women and is currently funded by the Kentucky Lung Cancer Research Program to examine a smoking cessation program among African American women.

2008 Accomplishments

Dr. Fernander submitted the following grant in 2008, NIH/NCI “Improving the Success of a Smoking Cessation Program for Low-Income Black Women”.  Dr. Fernander published three articles as primary author; 1 article accepted as co-author; 1 article under review as primary author; 2 manuscripts as co-author under review.  Dr Fernander PPS-II during the Spring of 2008.  She served on two graduate student’s master’s thesis committees (one as a co-chair) for graduate students in the College of Public Health who both successfully completed their MPH degrees.  She was practicum supervisor for 2 MPH Public Health students and faculty mentor for an undergraduate AMSTEMM student. Dr. Fernander served as an ad-hoc reviewer for the following journals and scientific organizations: Ethnicity & Disease, Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of the National Medical Association, Preventive Medicine, Journal of HealthCare for the Poor & Underserved, and the American Psychological Association.  During 2008 she served on 2 NIH/NCI grant review committee’s:  Feasibility Studies for Collaborative Interaction for Minority Institution/Cancer Center Partnership (PAR-07-230)  & PAR-06-458, Small Grants for Behavioral Research in Cancer Control (RO3).  Her formal national service activities include serving on the 20 member national network TReND (Tobacco Disparities Research Network which is co-sponsored by NCI and the American Legacy Foundation.  She has written articles on health disparities for a local African American community newspaper.  She was also invited to present at the National Health Disparities Summit in December on tobacco health disparities.   She continued to serve as chair of the organizing and planning committee of a community-wide health fair event.  She serves as the faculty advisor of the University of Kentucky’s Student National Medical Association (SNMA).  She serves on the UK College of Medicine’s Diversity Committee.  She is a scholar in the NIH/NHLBI SIPID program (Summer Institute Program to Increase Diversity, and was selected to participate in an NCI funded workshop on Behavioral Methodologies in Cancer Research for Underrepresented Investigators.

Research Funding

Principal Investigator, Commonwealth of Kentucky Lung Cancer Research Program Investigator-Initiated Research Grant.  “Examination of the Breathe Free for Women Stop Smoking Program among African American Women: A Pilot Study”.  September, 2007 to August, 2009.

Principal Investigator, NIH K-12 award, DA01014040-04, “The Influence of Stress and Coping on Smoking Status and Smoking Behaviors Among Disadvantaged African American Women, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 2003-2006.

Principal Investigator, University of Kentucky College of Medicine Research Fund Grant,  “Stress, Coping, Smoking and Nicotine Metabolism Among Pregnant African American Women”, 2003-2004.

Representative Publications

Fernander, A., Shavers, V. L. and Hammons, G.  (2007).  “A biospsychosocial approach to examining tobacco-related health disparities among racially classified social groups”.  Addiction, 102(Supplement 2), 43-57.

Fernander, A.  (2007).  “Race, genes and tobacco related health disparities in the U.S.: What is the role of genetics?”.  Addiction, 102(Supplement 2), 58-54.

Fernander, A., Patten, C., Hurt, R., Croghan, I., Offord, K., Schroeder, D., and Eberman, K.  (2006).  “Characteristics of six-month tobacco use outcomes of black patients seeking smoking cessation intervention.”  Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 17, 413-424.

Fernander, A., Price, M., Flisher, A.J., Chalton, D., King, G. and Lombard, C.  (2006).  “Gender differences in depression and smoking among youth in Cape Town, South Africa.  Ethnicity and Disease, 16, 41-50.

Fernander, A., Wilson, J., Staton, M. and Leukefeld, C.  (2005).  “Exploring the type-of-crime hypothesis, religiosity, and spirituality in an adult male prison population”.  International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 49(6), 682-695.

Fernander, A., Patten, C. Hurt, R., Croghan, I., Schroeder, D. and Eberman, K. (2005). “Exploring the association of John Henry Active Coping, Education and John Henryism on smoking behavior and nicotine dependence among Blacks.  Social Science and Medicine, 60(3), 491-500.

Fernander, A., Wilson, J., Staton, M. and Leukefeld, C.  (2004).  “An exploratory examination of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale among incarcerated Black and White Male Drug Users”.  International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 48(4), 403-413.

Fernander, A., Duran, R., Saab, P. and Schneiderman, N.  (2004).  “John Henry Active Coping, education, and blood pressure among urban blacks”.  Journal of the National Medical Association, 96(2), 246-255.

Fernander, A., Durán, R., Saab, P., Llabre, M. and Schneiderman, N. (2003) “Assessing the reliability and validity of the John Henry Scale for Active Coping among an urban sample of African-Americans and white-Americans”.   Ethnicity and Health, 8(2), 147-161.