How doctor stress, health worries, and short-term illness affect ER care for abdominal pain
Official title: The Impacts of Adverse Provider Conditions on Provider Bias and Health Disparities
Funded at University of Arkansas at Fayetteville · NIH-11193887 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether emergency doctors’ stress, concerns about their own health, or short-term inflammation change how they treat people with abdominal pain.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Arkansas at Fayetteville NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Fayetteville, United States) |
| Project start | September 20, 2024 |
| Project end | May 31, 2029 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $720,610 |
| NIH project number | 5R01MD019051-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11193887 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are people who come to participating emergency departments with abdominal pain and whose care might be influenced by clinician decision-making.
✕Less likely to help
People with health issues unrelated to emergency abdominal pain or those treated outside the participating hospitals are unlikely to get direct benefit from this grant.
What this research studies
From a patient point of view, the team will work with emergency physicians to see when and why care varies for people who come in with belly pain. They will collect brief surveys about workplace demands and worries about personal health, and take simple biological samples to measure short-term inflammation. The researchers will compare those provider measures to how consistently doctors make treatment decisions for different patients with abdominal pain. The goal is to identify provider and system situations that could be changed to make care fairer.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to ways to reduce inconsistent or biased emergency care for people with abdominal pain.
How similar studies have gone: Prior work shows clinician stress and burnout can affect care, but combining self-reported health worries and biological inflammation to predict inconsistent treatment is a newer approach.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
Fayetteville, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Makhanova, Anastasia — University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
- Study coordinator: Makhanova, Anastasia
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.