Michelle Lynn Wright

National Institutes of Health | NIH · Center for Cancer Research

Introduction Advancements in DNA extraction and sequencing technologies have been fundamental in deciphering the significance of the microbiome related to human health and pathology. Whole metagenome shotgun sequencing (WMS) is gaining popularity in use compared to its predecessor (i.e., amplicon-based approaches). However, like amplicon-based appr...

Climate change has measurable adverse impact on the general and reproductive health of women and girls. Multinational government organizations, private foundations, and consumer groups identify anthropogenic disruptions in social and ecological environments as the primary threats to human health this century. Drought, micronutrient shortage, famine...

Purpose: Disparities in cognitive function among racial and ethnic groups have been reported in non-cancer conditions, but cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) in racial and ethnic minority groups is poorly understood. We aimed to synthesize and characterize the available literature about CRCI in racial and ethnic minority populations. Method...

Introduction Depression is one of the most common yet underdiagnosed perinatal complications and our understanding of the pathophysiology remains limited. Though perinatal depression is considered to have a multifactorial etiology, integrative approaches to investigation are minimal. This review takes an integrative approach to systematically evalu...

Background Pulmonary exacerbations (PExs) in people with cystic fibrosis (PwCF) are associated with increased healthcare costs, decreased quality of life and the risk for permanent decline in lung function. Symptom burden, the continuous physiological and emotional symptoms on an individual related to their disease, may be a useful tool for monitor...

Aim: This integrative review seeks to provide effective teaching and learning strategies for teaching about racism and advancing health equity. Background: Most faculty preparation remains devoid of an exploration of racism and the skills to critique how historical events and socialization create and reinforce the biases that influence how we te...

Objective: Obesity is a significant public health concern across the globe. Research investigating epigenetic mechanisms related to obesity and obesity-associated conditions has identified differences that may contribute to cellular dysregulation that accelerates the development of disease. However, few studies include Black women, who experience...

Importance: The impact of language discordance on care for Spanish-speaking patients with pelvic floor disorders is unknown. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the impact of language concordance with the impact of language discordance on the patient experience and trust in their provider. Methods: This cross-sectional cohort study...

Introduction: Experiencing psychosocial stress is associated with poor health outcomes such as hypertension and obesity, which are risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease. African American women experience disproportionate risk for cardiovascular disease including exposure to high levels of psychosocial stress. We hypothesized that psych...

Nursing science contributes to advancements in patient care, public health, and innovation within numerous scientific domains. Despite commonality with United States Department of Education definitions of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational programs, nursing continues to be excluded from Department of Homeland Sec...

Abstracts published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 56, Issue 5, May 2022, Pages 523–532, https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaab058

Objective: The study purpose was to determine the prevalence of candida-positive vulvovaginal genital cultures among women with vulvodynia. Methods: This study was a retrospective analysis of data collected from 2017 to 2020. Eligible patients receiving care from an academic women's health practice in central Texas that employed value-based care pa...

Purpose: The purpose of this review was to explore the effects of psychosocial stress from life trauma and racial discrimination on epigenetic aging. Design: A systematic review of the last 10 years was conducted using four databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, PsychInfo, and CINAHL. Methods: Articles were identified using the following t...

The COVID-19 pandemic has made birthing more stressful and isolating, which has raised particular concern for populations of birthing people affected by maternal health inequities. Doulas have been proposed as one means of improving health outcomes by providing emotional, physical, and informational support to patients and their families before, du...

Background Preterm birth (< 37 weeks’ gestation) is a common outcome of pregnancy that has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease for women later in life. Little is known about the physiologic mechanisms underlying this risk. To date, no studies have evaluated if differences in DNA methylation (DNAm) among women who experienc...

See corresponding article on pages 163 and 171. DNA methylation is one of the most studied epigenetic marks related to chronic disease risk. Changes in DNA methylation have been implicated in the pathogenesis of diseases that are largely influenced by dietary quality, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Recent work suggests that diet can h...

Context: We previously reported positive behavioral effects of both daily mantra meditation and classical music listening interventions in breast cancer survivors with cancer related cognitive complaints. Objective: The objective of this pilot study was to compare the effects of the meditation intervention to a music listening intervention on bioma...

Objective: We aimed to characterize local brain network connectivity in long-term breast cancer survivors compared to newly diagnosed patients. Methods: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and subjective cognitive and psychological function data were obtained from a group of 76 newly diagnosed, pre-treatment female patients with breast can...

Background: Vaginal Lactobacillus is considered protective of some adverse reproductive health outcomes, including preterm birth. However, factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of harboring Lactobacillus in the vaginal microbiome remain largely unknown. In this study, we sought to identify risk and protective factors associated with vagi...

The diversity and dominant bacterial taxa in the vagina are reported to be influenced by multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including but not limited to pregnancy, contraceptive use, pathogenic states, socioeconomic status, and ancestry. However, the extent to which host genetic factors influence variation in the vaginal microbiota is unclea...

Introduction and hypothesisMethods to increase surgical preparedness in urogynecology are lacking. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of a preoperative provider-initiated telehealth call on surgical preparedness.Methods This was a multicenter randomized controlled trial. Women undergoing surgery for pelvic organ prolapse and/or stress urinary...

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com N u r s O u t l o o k 0 0 0 (2 0 2 1) 1 À3 www.nursingoutlook.org

Background Vaginal microbiome studies frequently report diversity metrics and communities of microbiomes associated with reproductive health outcomes. Reports of Streptococcus agalactiae (also known as Group B Streptococcus or GBS), the leading cause of neonatal infectious morbidity and mortality, are notably lacking from the studies of the vaginal...

Objectives: Colocated services in a team-based integrated practice unit (IPU) optimize care of pelvic floor disorders. Our goal was to compare ancillary service utilization in a multidisciplinary IPU between patients covered by a bundled payment model (BPM) versus a traditional fee-for-service model (FFSM). Methods: Medical records of women attend...

Objective To evaluate the association between the early pregnancy vaginal microbiome and spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) and early term birth (sETB) among African American women.Methods Vaginal samples collected in early pregnancy (8-14 weeks’ gestation) from 436 women enrolled in the Emory University African American Vaginal, Oral, and Gut Microb...

Background: Current analysis methods of the vaginal microbiome often fail to identify and/or report known pathogens such as Streptococcus agalactiae [a.k.a., Group B Streptococcus, (GBS)], resulting in an incomplete clinical understanding of bacterial composition during pregnancy. Objective: To determine the frequency of GBS reporting in vaginal m...

Research evaluating the vaginal microbiome during pregnancy has largely focused on bacteria, although the most abundant component of the human microbiome are bacteriophages (phages). Phages, viruses that infect bacteria, have largely been neglected in vaginal microbiome research, largely due to limitations in isolating and characterizing phages fro...

Nurses and nurse scientists are expert translators in a variety of contexts: from educating patients about complex disease processes at the bedside to applying new approaches to clinical research to better understand symptoms and improve health outcomes. Previous special issues of Biological Research for Nursing have highlighted the evolution of nu...

The paucity of representation of people of color, particularly those of African ancestry, is a major issue in contemporary omics research. Metadata summarizing genome-wide association studies from 2005 to 2015 suggest that nearly 80% of participants are of European ancestry and only 2.4% are of African ancestry. Negative attitude towards genetic te...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to (a) visualize the symptom–cytokine networks (perceived stress, fatigue, loneliness, perceived cognitive impairment, daytime sleepiness, sleep quality, and 13 cytokines) and (b) explore centrality metrics of symptom–cytokine networks in breast cancer survivors who completed chemotherapy treatment. Methods Cro...

Purpose: Although research has explored the effects of racism on mental health, few studies have investigated the effects of racism on physical health. In this study, we examined the influence of racial discrimination and race-related stress and coping on blood pressure within a cohort of Black/African American women. Methods: This was a secondary...

Objective A growing body of research has investigated the human microbiota and pregnancy outcomes, especially preterm birth. Most studies of the prenatal microbiota have focused on the vagina, with fewer investigating other body sites during pregnancy. Although pregnancy involves profound hormonal, immunological and metabolic changes, few studies h...

African American women are affected by earlier onset of age-associated health deteriorations and obesity disproportionally, but little is known about the mechanism linking body mass index (BMI) and biological aging among this population. DNA methylation age acceleration (DNAm AA), measuring the difference between DNA methylation age and chronologic...

The incidence of preterm birth exceeds 10% worldwide. There are significant disparities in the frequency of preterm birth among populations within countries, and women of African ancestry disproportionately bear the burden of risk in the United States. In the present study, we report a community resource that includes ‘omics’ data from approximatel...

With the rapid advancement of omics-based research, particularly big data such as genome- and epigenome-wide association studies that include extensive environmental and clinical variables, data analytics have become increasingly complex. Researchers face significant challenges regarding how to analyze multifactorial data and make use of the findin...

Nurse scientists are adept at translating findings from basic science into useful clinical- and community-based interventions to improve health. Over time, the focus of some nursing research has grown to include the assessment and evaluation of genomic and other output from high-throughput, or "omic," technologies as indicators related to health an...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) etiology and pathophysiology are not well understood. Recent data suggest that dysbiosis of gut microbiota may contribute to ALS etiology and progression. This review aims to explore evidence of associations between gut microbiota and ALS etiology and pathophysiology. Databases were searched for publications rele...

Observable differences in the diversity of vaginal microbiome profiles are present in women of different ethnic backgrounds. Non-pregnant African American (AA) women are more likely to have higher diversity and risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). High diversity has been postulated to contribute to disproportionate rates of preterm birt...

Introduction General life stress has been associated with altered DNA methylation in individuals of African Ancestry, although the relationship between parenting stress and DNA methylation has not been described. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal parenting stress and DNA methylation among African Ancestry mo...

Introduction: Plasma concentrations of lipids (i.e., total cholesterol, high-density cholesterol, low-density cholesterol, and triglycerides) are amenable to therapeutic intervention and remain important factors for assessing risk of cardiovascular diseases. Some of the observed variability in serum lipid concentrations has been associated with ge...

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of three or more metabolic disorders including insulin resistance, obesity and hyperlipidemia. Obesity has become the epidemic of the 21st century with more than 1.6 billion overweight adults. Due to the strong connection between obesity and type 2 diabetes, obesity has received wide attention with subsequent coining...

Background: Recent studies of various human microbiome habitats have revealed thousands of bacterial species and the existence of large variation in communities of microorganisms in the same habitats across individual human subjects. Previous efforts to summarize this diversity, notably in the human gut and vagina, have categorized microbiome profi...

Background: Advances in DNA sequencing technology have resulted in an abundance of personalized data with challenging clinical utility and meaning for clinicians. This wealth of data has potential to dramatically impact the quality of healthcare. Nurses are at the focal point in educating patients regarding relevant healthcare needs; therefore, an...

PurposeThe aim of the present study was to explore clusters of psychoneurological symptoms and inflammation (levels of C-reactive protein) over time in a cohort of women with early-stage breast cancer. Specifically, we examined the relationships among affective symptoms (depression, anxiety, fatigue, sleep disturbances, pain, and perceived stress),...

Background: The causes of many cases of preterm birth (PTB) remain enigmatic. Increased understanding of how epigenetic factors are associated with health outcomes has resulted in studies examining DNA methylation (DNAm) as a contributing factor to PTB. However, few studies on PTB and DNAm have included African American women, the group with the h...

Purpose: African Americans (AA) in the United States face significant health disparities in chronic health conditions. When compared to Caucasians, AAs fare worse with the following indices: 1) highest incidence and prevalence of hypertension, obesity, diabetes, low birth weight, and infant mortality; 2) highest death rates from heart disease, stro...

It has been well established that lead poisoning, as defined by the CDC as blood lead levels (BLLs) at or above 5 μg/dl, can lead to long-term neurotoxic effects in children and requires immediate treatment. As such, the CDC has long recommended clinicians’ assess to all patients for lead exposure and test BLLs for all at-risk patients. Furthermore...

African Americans suffer disproportionately from poor cardiovascular health outcomes despite similar proportions of African Americans and Americans of European ancestry experiencing elevated cholesterol levels. Some of the variation in cardiovascular outcomes is due to confounding effects of other risk factors, such as hypertension and genetic infl...

The need for research investigating DNA methylation (DNAm) in clinical studies has increased, leading to the evolution of new analytic methods to improve accuracy and reproducibility of the interpretation of results from these studies. The purpose of this article is to provide clinical researchers with a summary of the major data processing steps r...

The Intergenerational Impact of Genetic and Psychological Factors on Blood Pressure (InterGEN) study aims to delineate the independent and interaction effects of genomic (genetic and epigenetic) and psychological–environmental (maternally perceived racial discrimination, mental health, and parenting behavior) factors on blood pressure (BP) among Af...

It is well established that the environment contributes to health. However, few studies have evaluated environmental exposures in women that may influence future health of their offspring. Knowledge gained may inform nursing how to better advocate for patients and families, and provide individualized interventions and education. Therefore, a more c...

Background In most high and middle income countries across the world, at least 1:4 women give birth by cesarean section. Rates of labour induction and augmentation are rising steeply; and in some countries up to 50 % of laboring women and newborns are given antibiotics. Governments and international agencies are increasingly concerned about the cli...

Background: Environmental exposures relevant to health outcomes occur from preconception through death. Maternal exposures are believed to be especially influential in programming health outcomes in offspring since they occur during a critical developmental period. The interaction between maternal and fetal environments plays a critical role in hig...

Endogenous and exogenous exposures during fetal development have potential to impact birth and health outcomes of offspring. Accumulating evidence suggests exposures may alter the antenatal microbiome and subsequently alter the microbiome and health of offspring. The purpose of this integrative review is to summarize and critically evaluate the cur...

Aims As maternal vitamin D status has been associated with preeclampsia, the purpose of this study was to determine variations in DNA methylation patterns and associated protein expression in placental genes regulating vitamin D metabolism. Main methods A convenience sample of 48 pregnant nulliparous women, including 11 later diagnosed with preecl...

The primary risk factor for neonatal Group B streptococcus (GBS) infection, which is the leading cause of infectious neonatal morbidity and mortality, is maternal colonization. However, no definitive maternal risk factors for GBS colonization have been identified and no systematic efforts have been made to prevent maternal colonization. The purpose...

Group B streptococcus (GBS) is the leading cause of infectious neonatal morbidity and mortality in the United States. Maternal GBS colonization is the primary risk factor associated with neonatal infection. However, maternal risk factors for GBS colonization are ambiguous. A conceptual framework of gene-environment interactions guided the approach...

Background: Preeclampsia contributes significantly to pregnancy-associated morbidity and mortality as well as future risk of cardiovascular disease in mother and offspring, and preeclampsia in offspring. The lack of reliable methods for early detection limits the opportunities for prevention, diagnosis, and timely treatment. Purpose: The purpose...

DNA methylation is an epigenomic modification that is essential to normal human development and biological processes. DNA methylation patterns are heritable and dynamic throughout the life span. Environmental exposures can alter DNA methylation patterns, contributing to the development of complex disease. Identification and modulation of environmen...

Preeclampsia (PE) affects 8–10% of women in the US. Long‐term consequences include development of maternal hypertension and hypertension in offspring. The familial risk of PE is well established, though underlying mechanisms are unknown. In this study, our goal was to identify differentially methylated genes common to both maternal peripheral blood...

Preeclampsia (PE), characterized by global fetal undernutrition due to placental insufficiency, affects over 100,000 women annually in the US. Gene‐environment interactions resulting from placental insufficiency during critical developmental windows may explain differential methylation of key genes associated with familial risk of PE. In this study...