Linda F. C. Bullock Collection2022-006

Linda F. C. Bullock Collection2022-006


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The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry

University of Virginia School of Nursing
P.O. Box 800782
Charlottesville, Virginia 22908-0782
mailto:nurs-hxc@virginia.edu
URL: http://www.nursing.virginia.edu/cnhi/

Henry K. Sharp

Repository
The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry
Identification
2022-006
Title
Linda F. C. Bullock Collection 1992-2009
URL:
https://archives.lib.virginia.edu/ark:/59853/140791
Quantity
14.25 Linear Feet
Language
English .
Abstract
Research materials from two clinical trials concerning low-income women in the Ozarks region of Missouri, specifically: smoking cessation programs during pregnancy, and domestic violence reduction in homes with young children. Largely white respondents, but some African-American and some Native American. Vast majority of collection comprises anonymous client files with interviews, etc., which can form the basis of much additional research on the nature of poverty in early-21st-century America.

Biographical / Historical

Linda F. C. Bullock, PhD, RN, FAAN, held the Jeanette Lancaster Alumni Professorship in Nursing at the University of Virginia School of Nursing from 2010 until her retirement in 2017. Under her previous academic appointment at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Sinclair School of Nursing (1997-2010), she undertook the monumental research studies represented in this collection.

Bullock earned a BS in Biology from Texas A&M University in 1971, and a second Bachelors of Science, in Nursing, Magna Cum Laude, from Texas Women's University in 1983, followed by an MS in Community Health Nursing, Summa Cum Laude, from the same school in 1987. Her PhD in Public Health was awarded by the faculty of the Otago Medical School, Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1996.

The Sigma Theta Tau nursing honor society conferred two reasearch awards on Dr. Bullock, in 2000 and 2004, and the American Academy of Nursing named her a fellow in 2003. She has numerous publications and research grants to her credit in the fields of maternal child health and international public health.

Scope and Contents

This remarkable and important collection of research materials derives from two grant-funded clinical trials directed by Professor Bullock of the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Professor Bullock and her colleagues crafted these projects as randomized, controlled trials of telephone and in-person visits, designed in the first case to aid smoking cessation among low income pregnant women residing in the Ozarks region of Missouri. The supplementary research project queried the effectiveness of such methods of social support in reducing domestic violence in homes with young children in the same region.

Items in the collection include the complete grant applications submitted to the National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health, and Institutional Review Board documentation and certifications, as well as project forms, scripts, protocols, a training manual, and similar documents. Beyond these administrative materials, the vast majority of the papers comprise anonymous client files, with summaries of interviews, conversations, and client self-reporting of life experiences. It is in these client raw-data files where the immense value of the collection lies.

Bullock and her colleagues published the results of their statistical data collection and analysis — one reprint for the smoking cessation study is included here — but the living conditions and life experiences of the women who participated in the trial offer many more opportunities for scholarly interrogation of the nature of poverty in early-twenty-first century rural America. A number of issues come to the fore in the interviews, among them: race and ethnicity; educational and employment conditions; family structure; isolation and transience; physical and emotional violence; substance abuse; criminal justice; and religious faith. How can nursing and the opportunities it provides for personal connection effect a positive change in the life conditions of vulnerable individuals?

Arrangement

The initial two boxes of the papers contain administrative materials specific to the grant application and review processes, as well as operational documentation, all organized alphabetically by subject heading. The remaining thirty boxes contain the anonymous client data files ordered by the sequential number assigned to each individual client. Gaps in the numerical sequence indicate a differentiation in client cohorts assigned to each one of the project's nurse field workers. Bullock herself describes: "there were 4 nurses hired at the beginning and they each had study numbers (101-299)(301-499)(501-599) and (601-799). Towards the end of the 3rd year — we hired 2 additional nurses and one had 801-899 and the other had 901-948." "Actual recruitment numbers for each nurse are as follows: "Nurse A — 100-286 "Nurse B (there was an issue with early patients the nurse recruited and we had to drop subjects 301-320, 322, 323, 325-331...). SO the new Nurse B took on 321 and 324 because their records had not been contaminated... and then recruited subjects 322-497. "Nurse C — 501-575 "Nurse D — 601-776" "New Nurses hired toward the end of the study: "Nurse E — 801-843 "Nurse F 901-948" "If you add these up — you will get 695 women recruited..."

The files for all 695 individuals are present in boxes 3-32.