Selected Collaborative Projects
During her years as Vice President for Health and Science Research at the Fetzer Institute, Dr. Underwood developed innovative and productive collaborative methods for working with other foundations, universities, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Many of these projects involved bringing together researchers from disparate fields to focus on particular topics or issues. These were some of her main collaborative projects.
Projects relating to Pain and Suffering
- Assembled a working group of scholars to investigate the psycho-social and spiritual aspects of suffering with an emphasis on pain-related suffering, funded by Fetzer. Collaborations of the group included:
- An on-going research study examining the existence of reproducible patterns of cerebral activity through neuro-imaging to test hypotheses around the model of pain related suffering and the role of psycho-social and spiritual factors in the modulation of the chronic pain state
- Several pilot studies, examining different features of pain related suffering.
- The group also developed a model of pain-related suffering, and helped to get the idea of suffering on the national agenda of pain researchers.
Projects Related to Stress and Asthma
- Helped organize a meeting on Stress and Asthma at the NHLBI in 1992.
- With researchers, designed a number of add-on projects for on-going longitudinal studies of asthma, including the National Inner City Asthma Study, and the Tucson Children's Respiratory Study.
- Developed Psycho-social Factors and Asthma working group with researchers from various disciplines.
- Significant research results in this area have been published in numerous articles.
Projects Related to Alcoholism
- Planned and developed an RFP jointly issued by the National Institutes on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) and the Fetzer Institute. The focus of the RFP was on the effect of religiousness and spirituality on alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. The joint RFP resulted in funding of over $3M of projects.
- Helped plan and organize along with the NIAAA a series of meetings related to this project.
- An initial meeting of the funded investigators was held in Washington in May 2001
- Yearly meetings have built a community of researchers in this area.
- A meeting of researchers and clergy working on designing a curriculum for clergy, building on the work.
- NIAAA has funded additional projects in this area.
- These projects have resulted in many professional presentations and publications, as well as in national press coverage.
Projects Related to World Health Organization and Quality of Life Measurement
- Developed a module for the World Health Organization to enrich measures of quality of life to be used in health programs.
- Worked with representatives from 18 countries worldwide, from conception and development to translation and implementation.
- Continue to work on application of this instrument in assessment of quality of life worldwide. WHOQUL and HIV-AIDS instrument.
Projects Related to End of Life Issues
- RFP on the role of interpersonal relationships and religiousness/spirituality in quality of end-of-life care and the dying process
- The RFP follows from an Integrative Workshop on End-of-Life Research Fetzer co-sponsored with various institutes at the NIH.
- Reports from that meeting published in an issue of The Gerontologist.