Nursing Alum Presents Climate-change Impacts on Cancer Care

Sherily Pereira-Morales, a UMass nursing Ph.D. alumna and associate professor of nursing at the University of Puerto Rico’s Medical Sciences Campus, recently gave a climate-change presentation at the Global Power of Oncology Nursing Conference that stemmed from a paper she and oncology nurse scientist Rae Walker, director of the nursing Ph.D. program, worked on together, along with members of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments.

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The oncology nursing conference takes place each year during London Global Cancer Week and focuses largely on nursing efforts to improve cancer care in low-resource countries. Pereira-Morales, co-author of “Climate Change Should Be on Every Nursing Research Agenda,” discussed the increasing impacts of climate change on populations affected by cancer and the leadership by nurses in Puerto Rico to protect communities and help them adapt to these impacts.

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“She has witnessed firsthand the devastation of storms, such as Hurricane Maria and other disasters associated with increasingly volatile weather patterns related to climate change,” says Walker, who is the research mentor for Pereira-Morales.

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Pereira-Morales was recently selected for the National Institutes of Health-funded grant-writing program known as the Alliance for Hispanic Researchers. Her current research focuses on improving pain management and related health outcomes following cancer surgery.

Walker and Pereira-Morales also have an ongoing collaboration with patient advocates and other scientists on the University of Puerto Rico’s Medical Sciences Campus to address unmet needs of Puerto Rican breast cancer survivors.