A quest for more and better sleep drew 80 registrants to Yale School of Nursing (YSN) for the Sixth Annual Sleep & Symptom Research Symposium on April 30. Shakespeare’s Queen Mab did not attend, but the researchers Zooming in were perhaps even more keen to explore the slumber patterns of their subjects across the lifespan.
As symposium host Beatrice Renfield Term Professor of Nursing Nancy Schmieder Redeker, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN pointed out, sleep is a lifelong constant.
“Our work spans the human lifespan from birth to old age and also the trajectory of chronic conditions. Our studies include a focus on prevention of chronic health problems for people at risk, the role of sleep and chronobiology in chronic conditions, such as heart failure, stroke, and substance abuse, and sleep among people with critical illness,” Redeker said.
“Our efforts also increasingly address questions regarding health equity and sleep. All of our work is focused on ultimately developing, testing, and disseminating effective interventions to improve sleep and sleep related outcomes.”
Redeker agreed with frequent collaborator Dr. Klar Yaggi, MD, MPH, BA that the study of sleep is an inherently interdisciplinary field, and steered attendees to the 20 posters from colleagues within and outside Yale for more evidence of strong partnerships.
The event featured two keynote speakers. The first, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Medicine Samuel T. Kuna, MD, explored a post-pandemic sleep landscape with his address “Sleep Medicine After the Pandemic: The New Normal.”
The second featured speaker, Teresa M. Ward, RN, PhD, FAAN, Co-Director at the Center for Innovation and Sleep Management at the University of Washington, presented her work in a keynote entitled “Sleep Health and mHealth Intervention in Pediatric Chronic Conditions.”
Guests attended from throughout Yale, Veteran’s Affairs, Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS), and beyond.
The Sleep Symposium was cosponsored by YSN, The Yale Center for Biobehavioral Health Research, the Yale School of Medicine Program in Sleep Medicine and Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine.
Poster Session & Event Video
The virtual poster session showcased a wide continuum of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodology research and translational improvement projects. To learn more, check out all the posters here.
Want More Sleep?
For a more extensive overview of sleep expertise at YSN, read the Sleep Week article “YSN Sleep Experts Research Everything A to Zzzs.”