This program is being rescheduled due to the federal shutdown.

C3EN Pilot Awardee Kirsten Dickins, PhD, APRN, FNP-C will be presenting the October NIH Health Disparities Interest Group Seminar on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 10:30AM – 11:30AM ET. The seminar will be available via NIH Videocast: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=56981

Dickins’s research focuses on health systems/model of care innovation, with interest in co-designing and implementing integrated, trauma-focused care with populations who might not otherwise have access to such services.

As a C3EN Pilot Awardee, Dickins conducted a pilot trial of therapy for PTSD in Black women experiencing homelessness. Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) trains patients to tell the story of their lives, giving context to traumatic events and developing a stronger sense of personal identity. In her C3EN pilot study, Dickins screened almost 300 women and delivered the intervention to over 70 women. She is in the process of expanding the scale of her work with a new form of NET that has been adapted based on feedback from participants in the pilot.

Awarded an NIH R01 and named an NIH National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Intramural Researcher in 2024, Dickins rejoined Rush University this autumn as an assistant professor in the Road Home Program in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Rush Medical College.