Jane K. Dixon, PhD

• Professor
• Doctoral Program
• Nursing Management, Policy, and Leadership Specialty

Yale School of Nursing - Rm 237
100 Church Street South
P. O. Box 9740
New Haven, CT 06536
USA

jane.dixon@yale.edu

203.737.2234
203.737.2414 fax

Research interests

Environmental health promotion and engagement in environmental health; instrument development and validation; innovation and problem solving in research method

About

Jane Dixon, Ph.D., is an experienced investigator, who has taught research method and conducted research at Yale University School of Nursing since 1975. Her research has focused on behavioral factors in promotion of health, and management of illness, across various populations and settings. She has been principal investigator of three major grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, and has been co-investigator on numerous others. Funding sources have included National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institute of Aging, National Cancer Institute, National Library of Medicine, Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and Health Resources and Services Administration.

Dr. Dixon's current focus is in the area of environment health, especially engagement of people in promoting healthy environment - i.e., people's concerns about environmental hazards which may affect health, and the responses to those hazards by those who are most affected. Dr. Dixon is developing an instrument to measure people's engagement in environmental health. A foundation for this work is the formulation of an integrated model that identifies four domains of knowledge for environmental health. This integrated model is intended to unify biological and behavioral factors in environmental health research. Using this model, she has recently completed a study about community responses to particulate matter air pollution in New Haven. Dr. Dixon has also authored or co-authored several articles focused on a specific environmental health issue for publication in journals widely read by clinicians.

Dr. Dixon also has numerous involvements in research efforts to develop new measures which are psychometrically sound. Over the past several years, she has been site principal investigator (Yale) of a study to develop an instrument to measure self-management of adolescents with type 1 diabetes. The focus here is on the transition from family management by parents of young adolescents to growing independence of self-management in older adolescents. She is also collaborating in development of Family Management Measure, an instrument to measure family management of childhood chronic illness. Dr. Dixon also utilizes her expertise in instrument development to collaborate in projects on other diverse topics, including implementability of clinical guidelines and nursing protocols, attitudes regarding privacy and confidentiality of health care information, and integration of chronic illness, and she has created instruments to assess experience of illness over the lifespan, self-ratings of health, and career-life balance for application in health psychology studies. She has worked with international colleagues to develop and refine approaches for translating instruments from one language to another, and to assess validity of translated instruments. She is also co-director of Outcomes Core of a Core Center Grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research concerning self and family management of vulnerable populations. Drawing on these diverse measurement projects which have often involved use of complex statistical techniques such as factor analysis, Dr. Dixon has written the chapter on exploratory factor analysis through five editions of a widely used statistics textbook.

Dr. Dixon served as a member, then as Chair, of the Human Subjects Research Review Committee at Yale School of Nursing for 17 years. As a professor, Dr. Dixon primarily teaches courses in research methods and measurement to PhD students in nursing, and she mentors PhD students, especially in applying fundamental principles of research in innovative ways. She also teaches a course on evaluation in the NMPL specialty. Dr. Dixon was honored to be selected by students to receive the Annie Goodrich Award for Excellence in Teaching at Yale University School of Nursing, in 2006. She feels privileged to have this opportunity to teach and collaborate with nurses of Yale, and to support the YSN mission of "better health care for all people."

“ I am fascinated by the intersection of health and behavior - most recently, with particular focus on environmental health. The World Health Organization estimates that 24% of overall disease burden is attributable to modifiable environmental factors. For example, there are known adverse health effects from exposure to air pollution, lead, pesticides, mercury, and other toxic substances. We need know more about how people think about environmental health hazards and how this leads them to action to reduce risks - especially among those who are most affected. My goal is to help bridge the gap between the world of health professionals and the world of environmental activists in ways of perceiving and responding to environmental health hazards, in order to better support individuals and communities in solving their environmental health problems. ”

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