Assistant nursing professor speaks on hypertension, its connection to cognitive decline in African American populations

Pictured is Wright along with her research team of the Brain and Blood Pressure Health is Valuable for Everyone, also known as B+BHIVE. Photo was taken by Andrew Weber, photographer for the Ohio State College of Nursing.

Credit: Arianna Smith

By: Arianna Smith

A nurse, writer, and scientist. As it turns out, all three can be accomplished in one lifetime, by one person.

Dr. Kathy Wright, assistant professor in the College of Nursing on a tenure track, is known for her work regarding hypertension and how it can lead to cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease in older African American populations. Along with this, Wright studies how a self-care lifestyle can lead to maintaining good health.

Wright said her interest since her doctoral studies lied in understanding how stress affected the body both mentally and physically. Wright said her mother's passing in 2005 inspired her to address the issue concerning African American caregivers of dementia patients. 

Wright said she received her Ph.D. in 2013 from the University of Utah followed by postdoctoral studies at Case Western Reserve University, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. There, she received funding to study stress and allostatic load. Wright said this is also where she learned about hair cortisol concentration analysis, which is a method of measuring long-term exposure to stress. 

“The cortisol that is in your hair grows with your hair so that approximately 1 cm from the scalp out, is reflective of 30 days exposure of stress and it goes all the way to about three months so 3 cm would be three months approximately of stress,” Wright said.

According to Wright’s 2018 study “Collecting Hair Samples for Hair Cortisol Analysis in African Americans,” the benefit of using hair samples to test for the hormone cortisol, compared to saliva, urine or serum samples, is that hair samples allow you to track cortisol release over several months.

Wright said also during her postdoctoral work, she received funding to work with prehypertensive African Americans and used mindfulness-based stress reduction training along with dietary approaches to stop hypertension.

“It was kind of challenging doing that type of work because prehypertension, unlike prediabetes, you don’t hear quite as much about prehypertension and people may not be as invested in making changes because they don’t really understand what that diagnosis is and it’s not really a diagnosis and etcetera,” Wright said.

Wright said she came to Ohio State in 2017 and developed collaborations across the university. This included her work with Dr. Douglas Scharre, a professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry, Ingrid Adams, an associate professor in extension specialist in food, health, and human behavior, and Maryanna Klatt, a professor in clinical family medicine who developed the mindfulness in motion intervention that Wright uses in her work. 

Wright said the mindfulness in motion and the dietary approaches to stop hypertension, which she refers to as MIM DASH, was successfully done with African American older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

Wright said she received two grants to research and address the issue that African Americans are twice as likely to get Alzheimer's disease than any other group. Nearly 60 percent of caregivers are Black women, and Black women caregivers are at the highest risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke from hypertension.

Wright said she has two studies being funded, one through the National Institute on Aging, where her team is currently comparing MIM DASH to general caregiver training. The second is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — a philanthropic organization that works to increase access to healthcare.

“A lot of the literature that’s out there, and the work that’s been done, which there’s been a lot of work done in the caregiver world, focuses quite often on, how best can I take care of a person that has dementia but not enough focuses on specifically, how do I take care of myself, and how do I take care of myself as a Black woman in the context of the roles that I have, as a mother, sister, wife, etcetera,” Wright said. 

Dr. Karen Patricia Williams, director of the Center for Women, Children and Youth and distinguished professor of women's health in the College of Nursing, said as a colleague, Wright is dependable, thoughtful and confident in her area of expertise.

Williams said Wright represents her profession of nursing well, opens herself up to mentoring other individuals and is innately a teacher and mentor to others.

“I think that people would think of her as being a very compassionate, kind individual,” Williams said.

Marissa Ramsumair, a fourth-year dual degree student in pharmacy as a doctoral student and in science and translational pharmacology as a master’s student, said she met Wright through her master’s program. She found Wright’s work interesting, especially the work she does in the community for African Americans.

“She’s just the most caring and supportive person,” Ramsumair said. “She’s challenged me in numerous ways, she’s supported me, she’s cheered me on, so I think she’s just a really good professor, friend and mentor.”

Wright said she was determined to pave the way for other students of color and hopes to one day create a scholarship to advance students who may not have the opportunities others do financially. She said she resonates with them as someone who grew up “in the hood” and made it out.

Ramsumair said her time with Wright has presented her with diverse experiences that have prepared her for a professional career as she starts a new position working for Johnson & Jonhson.

“I think she’s given me the opportunity to grow and be more confident as a person and share the knowledge that we’ve learned together in order to kind of advance therapies and health care in the future,” Ramsumair said. 

Ramsumair said it was inspiring to see a woman of color doing the work Wright is doing, especially with healthcare being a predominately white field. 

Wright said she encourages individuals to enjoy the work they do, never give up, get used to rejection, find mentors to learn from and remember what is important in life. 

“Your work should be fulfilling, it should be something that you enjoy, I look at it really as a calling, that I've been provided with all of these opportunities,” Wright said.