Ruth A. Anderson

My research program is concerned with understanding and improving nursing management practices and their impact on outcomes, with a particular interest in resident outcomes in nursing homes. I use complexity science, organizational and nursing theory to bring together the constructs of communication and decision processes, relationship and interaction, organizational structures, context, resource allocation and health care outcomes. In my most recently NIH/NINR funded study, “Outcomes of Nursing Management Practice in Nursing Homes,” I worked with a multidisciplinary team to explore relationship patterns and management practices that enable nursing homes to attain high quality resident outcomes in a series of eight comparative case studies, identifying management practices that are distributed through all levels of workers and appear to build capacity for high quality outcomes. From this work, we developed a new intervention for improving staff interactions and information exchange in long term care settings. I now engaged with this multidisciplinary team in a VA-Funded study to test the intervention for its impact on reducing patient falls. I have expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor Emerita in the School of Nursing · 2015 - Present School of Nursing

Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Aging · 1998 - Present Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, Institutes and Centers

In the News

Published June 19, 2014

Nursing ADAPT Center Marks Two Years of Improving Care of Chronic Illness

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Recent Publications

Exploring Safety Concerns in Assisted Living Communities: A Qualitative Comparison of Resident, Family, and Staff Perspectives.

Journal Article Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · December 2025 ObjectivesSafety concerns in assisted living (AL) communities are critical, yet understudied from the perspectives of residents, family caregivers, and staff. This study aimed to explore and compare safety concerns across these 3 groups.Design ... Full text Cite

Poststroke Fatigue Adaptation Between Stroke Survivors and Care Partners: A Longitudinal Qualitative Analysis.

Journal Article Research in nursing & health · October 2025 Poststroke fatigue severely affects stroke survivors (SSs) physically and mentally. Although the literature acknowledges the critical role of care partners (CPs) in survivors' fatigue adaptation, this topic remains under-explored. This study, guided by the ... Full text Cite

Interrelationship between fatigue and recovery of physical function in stroke survivors: a longitudinal mixed-methods study.

Journal Article European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicine · October 2025 BackgroundResearch has shown that late fatigue post-stroke is associated with poorer long-term outcomes, but the association between early fatigue with concurrent outcomes like physical function within six months is underexplored.AimTo ex ... Full text Cite

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Education, Training & Certifications

University of Texas, Austin · 1987 Ph.D.

University of Pennsylvania · 1981 M.S.N.

Ruth A. Anderson

Overview

Current Appointments & Affiliations

In the News

Recent Publications

Exploring Safety Concerns in Assisted Living Communities: A Qualitative Comparison of Resident, Family, and Staff Perspectives.

Poststroke Fatigue Adaptation Between Stroke Survivors and Care Partners: A Longitudinal Qualitative Analysis.

Interrelationship between fatigue and recovery of physical function in stroke survivors: a longitudinal mixed-methods study.

Recent Grants

Care-partner assisted intervention to improve oral health of individuals with mild dementia

Mentoring Intervention Development in Fall and Fracture Prevention

Outcomes of Nursing Management Practice in Nursing Homes

Education, Training & Certifications