Kea Turner awarded $1.1M DOD grant to improve nutrition care for cancer patients

A woman with long red hair and blue eyes smiles at the camera. She is wearing a dark, patterned blazer over a white top and has a neutral gray background behind her.

Kea Turner, PhD, MPH, MA, an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, has been awarded a $1,100,633 grant from the Department of Defense. The funding will support a clinical trial to evaluate the use of remote monitoring to reduce malnutrition and improve quality of life among individuals with gastroesophageal cancer.

Malnutrition is a common and distressing problem for cancer patients. Malnutrition can make patients feel worse during treatment and reduce the effectiveness of cancer treatment. Meeting with a dietitian as early as possible during cancer treatment is an effective way to address malnutrition.

Currently, less than half of cancer patients meet with a dietitian during cancer treatment. Our research team developed a program that provides cancer patients with early and ongoing follow-up with a dietitian and tools and resources to manage nutrition during cancer treatment.

Turner and her team plan to recruit NC residents with pancreatic cancer in the coming months. Their long-term goal is to make nutrition support a standard part of cancer care delivery to improve patient outcomes and cancer treatment success.

The study team includes Dr. Brent Small, PhD, Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, Dr. Ashwin Somasundaram, MD, Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and Beth MacIntosh, MPH, RD, LDN, the Clinical Nutrition Manager for the Metabolic & Nutrition Research Core at UNC Health.