About Us
July 3, 2024
Author: Melissa L. Weber
After spending a year in community health work as a dietitian, Dan Gilmore had risen to a supervisory position with a dozen interns. Then, he started classes towards his master’s degree.
He had imagined advancing his education even as an undergraduate. His older brother inspired him.
“Our oldest brother set a precedent for advanced degrees,” Gilmore said, one of five children in his family from the Dayton, Ohio area, and one of triplets. “We all love to learn.”
He didn’t stop with his master’s degree. Now a candidate for his doctorate in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, he already has 17 peer-reviewed papers, eight of which list him as the first author.
“I’ve had a successful career so far, but none of that could have happened without the help from the lab and Dr. Brittany Hand,” he said.
Pivoting to holistic care
Gilmore graduated from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in 2018, in the final class of the coordinated dietetics program. His work in community health sparked an interest in a more holistic approach to healthcare for adults with “barriers to care.”
While working on his master’s degree, he saw an opportunity to study ways to improve care for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and left his full-time job to work with his mentor, Brittany Hand PhD, OTR/L. When she suggested a PhD, he took the opportunity to continue his research and entered the doctoral program.
“Adults with IDD face disparities in healthcare driven by multiple factors,” he said.
The standard of care in US medicine typically features a primary care doctor who refers patients to other providers for mental health and specialty care. Adults with IDD may have challenges with navigation. Providers sometimes don’t communicate with each other, and often have little training with adults who have IDD.
Gilmore explained that research conducted over the past 10 to 20 years has shown care disparities for adults with disabilities. These patients have a high rate of emergency department use and poorer health outcomes. The research he is conducting is one of the first studies to examine how to mitigate these disparities.
Finding a better way
Gilmore is examining anxiety, depression and quality of life scores using surveys and electronic medical record data at two clinics at the University of Cincinnati. One clinic is a traditional referral office; the other features a primary healthcare provider co-located with mental health professionals. The research team is also measuring satisfaction of care by conducting personal interviews.
“We’re hoping to see that integrated care is associated with better mental health outcomes and higher satisfaction with care,” he said.
Hand’s lab is also tackling another way to improve healthcare outcomes for these patients: better training for healthcare workers to support adults with disabilities. The Hand Research Team includes three undergraduate students, an occupational therapy doctoral student, and another doctoral student who will start in the autumn of 2024.
“Anything that’s gone well for me is thanks to Dr. Hand,” Gilmore said. “She is the best mentor I could have asked for. She’s so good at providing the right amount of work to learn key skills.”
Gilmore presented some of his research at the International Society for Autism Research in Sweden, where he networked with researchers whose work he had read. He called his experience an “incredible opportunity.”
“Engaging in every part of the research process is meaningful,” Gilmore said. “Even undergraduates get the opportunity to contribute to meaningful research. They help analyze the data and write the papers. Students come out of her lab so well-rounded.”