College of NursingClaire Richards

Claire Richards

  1. Assistant Professor, Spokane
  2. Community Engagement Council Advocate
Email Addressclaire.richards@wsu.edu
Phone509-358-7900,88119

Biography

Climate change poses new threats to human health through direct, indirect, and compounding hazards that interact with social, political and economic inequities. For this reason, I am focus my research on health equity and social justice in the context of climate change. Recent work has been focused on power outages and social vulnerability. Central findings from this work include the potential to model power outages as a continuous rather than dichotomous exposure (allowing for identification of thresholds based on health outcome data), and the lack of transparency into power outage data (hampering its use for prioritizing energy resilience efforts). Findings inform future researchers wishing to use PowerOutage.US data (or other publicly available outage data) about potential biases caused by using certain estimation methods, and support policy changes in requiring outage data availability and analyses of differential exposure for socially vulnerable populations. I have also been involved in studies related to climate adaptation in agriculture and climate hazards (human migration). In future work, I plan to focus on energy and health, energy justice, and social movements/activism and health

Education

  • BS Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA
  • BSN, Duke University, Durham, NC
  • PhD, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
  • Post-doctoral Fellowship, Department of Health Services Research & Development, Department of Veterans Affairs, Seattle, WA

Research Interests

  • Planetary health
  • One Health
  • Bioethics
  • Activism

Methodological Strengths

I use quantitative and qualitative methods in my work, including health care utilization, GIS, generalized additive mixed methods, thematic analysis, and community engaged research.

Areas of Expertise

  • Power Outages
  • Energy Justice
  • Climate Change and Health

Memberships

  • Alliance of Nurses for Health Environments, 2019-present. Co-chair of the Research Forum, 2024-present.
  • Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility Climate Action Task Force, 2019-Present.
  • American Public Health Association, 2022-present.

Honors and Awards

  • 2008, Duke School of Nursing Scholarship Award
  • 2009, Duke Global Health Institute Travel Scholarship Award
  • 2009, Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society
  • 2013, Nursing Economics Foundation Scholarship Award
  • 2013, University of Washington Top Scholar Award
  • 2014, Crowley Fellowship
  • 2014, Todak Endowed Nursing Scholarship
  • 2014, Northwest Chapter of the National Geriatric Nursing Association Professional Development Scholarship
  • 2014–2017, Allen Term Scholarship
  • 2015-2017 University of Washington Interdisciplinary Translational Health Sciences Scholar

Funded Research

  • NSF NNA Foundations for Improving Resilience in the Energy Sector Against Wildfires on Alaskan Lands (FIREWALL)
  • “Collaborative Research: Navigating the New Arctic: Foundations for Improving Resilience in the Energy Sector against Wildfires on Alaskan Lands (FIREWALL).” National Sciences Foundation. 30% Effort for 4 Years ($344,000). Principal Investigator. September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2026.

Selected Publications

  • Richards CA, Amiri S, Walden VP, Heidari Kapourchali M, Postma J, Zuur AF. Association of social vulnerability factors with power outage burden in Washington State: 2018-2021. PLOS ONE. 2024 Sept 4. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307742
  • Richards, CA, Walden, VP. Data supporting association of social vulnerability with outage burden in Washington State: 2018-2021. In: figshare [Internet]. London, United Kingdom: figshare; 2024 July. Available from: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24908559.v1 DOI: 10.0.23.196/m9.figshare.24908559
  • Richards CA, Hebert PL, Liu CF, Ersek M, Wachterman MW, Taylor LL, Reinke LF, O’Hare AM. Association of family ratings of quality of end-of-life care with stopping dialysis treatment and receipt of hospice services. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Oct 2;2(10):e1913115. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6804019.

Other Publications

Schenk, E., Richards, C.A., Eide, P. (2023). The planet is warming: What nurses need to know? American Nurse Journal, 18(6). http://doi.org/10.51256/ANJ062306

Richards, C.A. & Doorenbos, A.Z. (2016). Intercultural competency development of health professions students during study abroad in India. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 6(12): 89-98. doi: 10.5430/jnep.v6n12p89

Richards, C.A., Starks, H., O’Connor, M.R., Doorenbos, A.Z. (2017). Elements of family-centered care in the pediatric intensive care unit: An integrative review. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing, 19(3): 238-246. doi: 10.1097/NJH.000000000000033

Richards, C. A., Starks, H., O’Connor, M. R., Bourget, E., Hays, R., & Doorenbos, A. Z. (2018). Physicians perceptions of shared decision-making in neonatal and pediatric critical care. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 35(4): 669-676. doi: 10.1177/1049909117734843

Richards, C. A., Starks, H., O’Connor, M. R., Bourget, E., Lindhorst, T., Hays, R., & Doorenbos, A. Z. (2018). When and why do neonatal and pediatric critical care physicians consult palliative care? American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 35(6): 840-846. doi:10.1177/1049909117739853.

O’Hare, A.M., Richards, C.A., Szarka, J., McFarland, L.V., Vig, E.K., Sudore, R.L., Crowley, S. Trivedi, R., Taylor, S.T. (2018). “I was emotionally distraught for quite some time:” Emotional impact of illness and care on patients with advanced kidney disease. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 13(7): 1022-1029. doi: 10.2215/CJN.14261217

Richards, C.A., Liu, C., Hebert, P., Ersek, M., Wachterman, M., Reinke, L., Taylor, L., O’Hare, A.M. (in press, 2019) Family perceptions of quality of end-of-life care for Veterans with advanced chronic kidney disease. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 14(8). doi: 10.2215/CJN.01560219

Richards, C.A., Hebert, P., Liu, C., Ersek, M., Wachterman, M., Taylor, L., Reinke, L., O’Hare, A.M. (2019). Association between stopping dialysis and receipt of hospice services before death with family perceptions of quality of end-of-life care. JAMA Network Open, 2(10): e1913115. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.13115

O’Hare, A.M., Butler, C.R., Taylor, J.S., Wong, S.P.Y., Laundry, R.S., Wachterman, M.W., Vig, E.K., Hebert, P.L., Liu, C., Rios-Burrows, N., & Richards, C.A. (in press). Qualitative analysis of documented discussions about hospice in the electronic medical records of a national cohort of veterans with advanced kidney disease. Journal of American Society of Nephrology, 31(11): 2667-2677; doi: 10.1681/ASN.2020040473

Butler, C.R., Wightman, A., Richards, C.A., Laundry, R.S., Taylor, J.S Hebert, P.L., Liu, C., & O’Hare, A.M. (in press, 2020). “Some person behind a desk is going to be looking at my file”: Thematic analysis of the health records of a national sample of patients with advanced kidney disease evaluated for kidney transplant. JAMA Internal Medicine. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.6388

Complete List of Published Works

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1XQGdo6ausY52/bibliography/public/

updated 09/12/24