Sarah Miller
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a long-term lung disease that makes breathing difficult, is a leading cause of death in the United States and the third worldwide. It hits people in rural areas especially hard.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
respiratory muscle strength training
dyspnea
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2030
What they work on
- Test whether RESP-FIT, a home program of respiratory muscle strength training with a portable device and mobile health support, reduces shortness of breath in rural adults with COPD, using a randomized controlled trial against enhanced usual care.
- Measure whether RESP-FIT lowers dyspnea-related kinesiophobia, the fear of physical activity caused by breathlessness, and improves respiratory quality of life, tracking symptoms with remote spirometry and real-time ecological momentary assessment.
- Identify barriers, facilitators and contextual factors, such as environmental exposures, distance from care, social support and income, that may change how well COPD patients engage with and benefit from RESP-FIT.
More about the research
Rural residents are often exposed to wood smoke, dust and farm byproducts that harm the lungs, and they often live far from treatment. Shortness of breath (dyspnea) can also make patients afraid to move, a fear called dyspnea-related kinesiophobia, and that fear leads to further physical decline. This project asks whether a home-based breathing-muscle training program, delivered through mobile health tools, can help rural adults with COPD breathe and live better.
Why it matters
Adults with COPD in rural communities often lack nearby rehabilitation. A portable, technology-supported breathing-muscle training program could reduce shortness of breath and improve daily functioning and quality of life without frequent clinic visits. Knowing which factors limit adherence could guide scalable programs that improve respiratory health in rural areas.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Michael Sjoding
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Evaluate computational strategies that make an AI tool for diagnosing acute dyspnea (shortness of breath) more robust and less biased when analyzing clinical and imaging data from different patients.
Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir
Columbia University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Establish how dysanapsis, a mismatch between airway size and lung size, measured early in life relates to lung function trajectories through childhood and to dysanapsis at late adolescence, using 8 birth cohorts, spirometry and lung MRI.
Andre Miguel
Washington State University, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether rural smokers with alcohol use disorder who receive varenicline plus app-based contingency management submit more breathalyzer samples showing alcohol abstinence and non-heavy drinking days than those using a control app.
The school
Medical University of South Carolina: 19 labs on PI Pages, $321M a year on research, 271 research doctorates a year.
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