Grant brings scholarships, training to midwifery and women’s health nurse practitioner students

A $2.6 million grant will allow the UIC College of Nursing to address a shortage of women’s health nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives and to provide them with more training in mental health care and substance use disorders.

The four-year grant from the Human Resources and Service Administration is part of the Advanced Nursing Education Workforce program.

The bulk of the grant – 70% – will go to scholarships for students in the nurse-midwifery and women’s health nurse practitioner programs, particularly those who come from underrepresented backgrounds, with a goal of diversifying the workforce. Nearly $500,000 has been allocated to about 20 students in those programs this year, with each scholarship worth about $20,000.

The other 30% will go to support faculty administering the grant — Patrick Thornton, PhD ’16; Kirby Adlam, PhD ’21, MS ’10; and Kelly Rosenberger, DNP ’12 — in their efforts to bolster the curriculum to provide more classroom and clinical opportunities for treating mental health and substance use disorders.

Nearly 85% of certified nurse-midwives and certified midwives are white, according to the American Midwifery Certification Board.

“We really want to look more like the population we serve,” said Thornton, who is principal investigator on the grant.

‘This is scary’

Reeves said she was shocked when she learned about the health disparities that Black women face, particularly around pregnancy. Black women are nearly three times as likely to die within one year of pregnancy as white women, according to the Illinois Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Report published in April 2021.

“With me being an African American woman, it was like, ‘Wow, this is scary, and I want to make a difference,’” she said.

Reeves said she’s also looking forward to receiving specific training to be able to prescribe medication for mental health and substance use disorders. Violent deaths — overdoses, homicide and suicide — make up about 42% of pregnancy-related deaths, according to the April 2021 report.

Thornton said most of the deaths are preventable, adding that the grant will allow him to find providers with subject matter expertise to serve as preceptors to students in the program. The most effective treatments for opioid use dependence involve buprenorphine or methadone, Thornton said, but many providers aren’t comfortable prescribing those medications.

“One of the things we wanted to do with this grant is to graduate our midwives and NPs with a background and comfort level of [prescribing medications] so we can skip that step of having to refer someone for basic treatment,” he said. “There’s evidence that’s more effective than making referrals to buprenorphine clinics.”

— Written by Deborah Ziff Soriano