Dana Manley

Dana Manley, MSN, ARNP, received a BSN and a MSN from Murray State University and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. She is a third year student beginning data collection for a pedometer intervention study aimed at increasing physical activity in middle school students. She is very grateful for the Nurses Educational Funds' Margaret G. Tyson Scholarship, as this award will help to advance her area of research.

Health promotion and disease prevention are the underlying premise of community health nursing and have always guided her practice. An interest in this area stems from roots grounded in the close knit ties of family and community. Growing up in rural Kentucky provided her the first hand knowledge associated with the opportunities and challenges of small town living and the impact those factors may have on the health of the community. These experiences, combined with her nursing education process, blossomed into a passion for community health nursing.

Manley's practice as a Women's Health Care Nurse Practitioner and Family Nurse Practitioner has allowed her the privilege to care for a variety of women, children, and their families in rural settings. Over the past several years, the incidence of overweight and obese children and adults across the communities in which she has practiced has been staggering. For that reason, her research interest is focused on increasing physical activity in youth and women. Manley firmly believes that developing cost effective interventions are essential in overcoming the woes of aggregates.

Presently, Manley is a faculty member at Murray State University, teaching community health nursing at the undergraduate level, and continues to practice part-time at a community public health center. Combining the roles of nurse educator and clinician has provided the opportunity to maintain clinical expertise while sharing a passion of community health nursing with students.

Her long-term goals are to continue to develop and refine her skills as a nurse educator and maintain clinical practice in the public health department setting. Manley is also interested in establishing a program of research aimed at health promotion in community settings with a focus on interventions to increase physical activity and prevent obesity in youth and women. Combining nursing research, education, and practice will be essential to furthering the enhancement of the profession of nursing, while educating nurses of the future and intervening in the health problems of populations.