The College of Public Health’s (COPH) Department of Health Behavior and Health Education (HBHE) on April 1 welcomed Keneshia Bryant-Moore, Ph.D., RN, FNP-BC, as primary faculty.
“We are really pleased to have her on board,” said HBHE Department Chair Carol Cornell, Ph.D..
Dr. Bryant-Moore has been at UAMS since 2009, when she took a primary appointment in the College of Nursing. She also previously held a secondary appointment in COPH. She is a registered nurse and family nurse practitioner. She has 17 years of experience of nursing experience in Arkansas, California and North Carolina, caring for children and adults.
”I am excited to join the COPH faculty,” Dr. Bryant-Moore said. “I feel that my research closely aligns with many of the faculty in the college, and I look forward to new and continued partnerships.”
Her work as a family nurse practitioner caring for adults with major depressive disorders motivated her to pursue a research career to better understand the effects of culture, gender and ethnicity on depression.
As a researcher, Dr. Bryant-Moore has honed in on mental illness among minority and rural populations as an area of particular interest. Through her research, she has also explored the effectiveness of faith community-based approaches to addressing mental illness affecting minorities. She has been the principal investigator (PI) on several studies on depression among African-American males, as well as spiritually as a pathway to spiritual and physical health and wellbeing.
Dr. Bryant-Moore has partnered with many organizations in the Arkansas Delta region about the need for more healthcare providers. In 2014, she led the efforts to implement the Growing Our Own in the Delta (GOOD) program which is funded by a HRSA-Nursing Workforce Diversity grant. The GOOD program aims to increase the number of underrepresented master’s degree-prepared nurses, including racial and ethnic minorities, males and first generation college students in the Delta and other rural communities. The program also partially supports the annual Community-Campus Partnership Conference to Address Health Disparities. Dr. Bryant-Moore is currently the PI for a PCORI grant that also supports the conference.
“Through my work over the past several years, I have gained more appreciation for collaborations and partnerships to address depression and other mental health issues,” she said. “These partnerships are vital to overcoming stigma, understanding the emotional needs of communities and access to care.”
Dr. Bryant-Moore is certainly no stranger to the College. She was a co-investigator with HBHE faculty Karen Yeary, Ph.D., the PI for a project, “Faith-Academic Initiatives for Transforming Health (FAITH) in the Delta,” a community-based, participatory initiative to reduce health disparities funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD).
HBHE faculty Tiffany Haynes, Ph.D., also shares Dr. Bryant-Moore’s interest in reducing mental health disparities among minorities living in rural Arkansas. They worked together on a PCORI-funded project led by Greer Sullivan, Ph.D., MSPH, “Addressing Mental Health Needs of Rural African Americans.” They also worked together on research on how a partnership between rural Arkansas faith communities and the Veterans Administration can promote mental health among military veterans.
Dr. Bryant-Moore also collaborated with Brooke Montgomery, Ph.D., MPH, and Katharine Stewart, Ph.D., HBHE faculty and former faculty, respectively, in research on religion and depression among rural African-American cocaine users.
Dr. Bryant-Moore’s scholarship has been supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholars programs, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and a UAMS Translational Research Institute KL2 Career Development Scholar Award, and has also been a fellow of the National Black Nurses Association and NIMHD.
Dr. Bryant-Moore earned her undergraduate degrees in nursing and healthcare administration from the University of Michigan-Flint. She completed a master’s degree in nursing from Duke University and doctorate in nursing from Azusa Pacific University.