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 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.
2011 Accomplishments
Dr. Fernander continued working on her NCI funded R03 entitled “The Impact of Smoke-Free Policy on QuitLine Utilization and Smoking Outcomes”. Dr. Fernander published two manuscripts, one as primary author. She served as Associate Editor for a special journal issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. She currently serves on one graduate dissertation committee. She taught an independent study course to one graduate student. Dr. Fernander served as an ad-hoc reviewer for the following journals: Ethnicity & Disease, Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of the National Medical Association, Preventive Medicine, Journal of HealthCare for the Poor & Underserved, and, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Journal of General Internal Medicine. During 2010 she served on 3 NIH/NCI grant review committee’s: Small Grants Program for Cancer Epidemiology (three times), Small Grants Program for Behavioral Research in Cancer Control (twice). She also reviewed for the Florida Department of Health James & Esther King Biomedical Research Program, New Investigator Research Grants. 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 was invited to speak at the “Health Equity Summit” in Lexington Kentucky, presented at UK’s Bioethics Grand Rounds, and at the Black Women in Health Meeting. She serves on the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco’s Special Populations Committee. She serves as faculty advisor of the University of Kentucky’s Student National Medical Association (SNMA). She also serves on the UK College of Medicine’s Diversity Committee.
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.
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