Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Healthcare
Karen Saban, PhD, RN, CNRN, FAHA, FAAN
Dr. Saban is a Research Health Scientist in the Center for Innovation in Complex Chronic Healthcare. She completed a three-year nursing post-doctoral fellowship in the HSR Center. She is also the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarly Innovation and a Professor in the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing at Loyola University Chicago. She has over twenty years of experience as a neuroscience, critical care, and trauma nurse.
Dr. Saban’s research seeks to integrate social context and inflammation with epigenetic signature to explain disparities in cardiovascular disease/stroke in disadvantaged women and to examine interventions that may ameliorate stress-related inflammation in vulnerable populations. She is currently a Principal Investigator for a NIH funded randomized controlled trial examining the impact of a race-based stress reduction on well-being, inflammation, and DNA methylation in African American women at risk for cardiometabolic disease (R01AG081251). Her Nursing Research Initiative (NRI) examined the effectiveness of an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in improving psychological well-being, reducing inflammatory burden, and decreasing cardiovascular risk in women Veterans. She also completed an NINR K01 examining social stress and epigenetic signature in African American women at risk for cardiovascular disease. Most recently, she is examining the effectiveness of a race-based stress reduction intervention in decreasing stress and inflammation in African American women at risk for cardiometabolic disease.
Contact: Karen.Saban@va.gov
