Over the past 16 years, Dr. Linda Larkey has been funded as Principal Investigator in over a dozen research grants from numerous local and national agencies, including four RO1s from the US Health and Human Services (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and National Institutes of Health), based in the Arizona Cancer Center and College of Medicine at University of Arizona, and in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University. Her primary research interests are testing theory-based methods of influencing health behavior using culturally adapted health messages/media to underserved/low-income populations, especially Latinos, including cancer screening and primary prevention behaviors, improving Latino recruitment to prevention trials, community-based participatory research practices.
Storytelling features centrally in her theoretical framework applied to culture-centric health promotion and emotional healing. Additionally, Dr. Larkey has applied her long-time personal interest in integrative medicine and meditative movement to research in cancer supportive care. In particular, she has launched studies to examine how Meditative Movement practices (e.g., Qigong, Tai Chi) affect quality of life, fatigue, sleep, cognitive function, emotional distress among cancer survivors. She is also examining cardiovascular, metabolic and psychoneuroimmunological effects of Meditative Movement and self-management of emotional states using heart rate variability rhythm practice among older adults and cancer survivors. |