Cynthia Arslanian-Engoren, PhD, RN, MSN, ACNS-BC, FAHA, FAAN

Dr. Arslanian-Engoren is a Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Biological Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Nursing. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from Wayne State University; a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) from the Medical College of Ohio (Now the University of Toledo); a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies and a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Nursing from the University of Michigan. She is an advanced practice registered nurse, who is a Clinical Nurse Specialist board certified in Adult Health.

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The overarching goal of her program of research is to reduce coronary heart disease in women. To this end, she has extensively studied disparities in nurses’ cardiac triage decisions for women who present with symptoms of myocardial infarction and perceptions of bias among women treated for acute coronary syndromes. She was amongst the first to show female patients presenting with possible cardiac symptoms face disparate nurses’ triage decisions, placing them at risk for life-threatening delays in acute cardiac treatment. She has also examined self-care decisions and heart healthy behaviors of demographically and geographically diverse women using qualitative and quantitative methods. More recently, she extended this work to include the examination of cognitive dysfunction and self-care decisions among adults with heart failure. Her nurse-led, multidisciplinary intervention includes cognitive computerized testing. She has also recently examined sexual orientation and tobacco use disparities and sexual orientation and hypertension risk reduction behaviors.