Welcome from the Associate Dean
for Research at the University of Delaware

Health care is changing. Although clinical care will always be at the center of patient care, the Affordable Care Act has pointed towards a new focus on implementing practices that lower costs and advance care options through prevention, monitoring of health and cost-effective care.

Academic research can help advance these health care goals. Better prevention programs are needed that help people recognize and avoid risk; better health monitoring programs are needed that assist the healthy and chronically ill to maintain an acceptable standard of health and become engaged in sustaining their own health; and better and more advanced clinical care programs are needed that determine the most effective ways to treat rehabilitating patient populations and promote healthy outcomes.

At the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences, our research and education programs focus on Prevention, Monitoring of Health and Rehabilitation. These focus areas are linked with clinical care, but exist peripheral to it and work collaboratively with hospitals and medical schools to advance patient care. We seek to find new ways to help patients avoid getting sick, or if ill, better ways to be diagnosed and recover through advanced rehabilitation approaches. We want to address the needs of patients before they enter the health care system, and to help them recover and exit the health care system as efficiently and healthy as possible.

In the College of Health Sciences, we have over 100 faculty members in five different departments who collaborate on research programs that address cardiovascular health, neurological diseases, orthopedics, health services research, aging, and women’s and children’s health. We also emphasize the importance of "education as research" and seek better ways to develop a workforce for today’s health care system as well as better and innovative ways to teach students and prepare them for careers.

Our scientists work collaboratively within their own scientific disciplines. But they also utilize a multidisciplinary team approach that includes basic, clinical, behavioral and community-based scientific techniques. This multidisciplinary team approach allows our researchers to take a holistic view of specific diseases and conditions and develop better ways to (a) diagnose certain diseases such that patients can receive treatments tailored for their condition (basic research), (b) to move patients through rehabilitation, emphasizing quality care, comparative effectiveness and excellent outcomes (clinical and behavioral research) and (c) better ways to help healthy and chronically ill patients monitor their health and avoid risk (behavioral and community-based participatory research).

Our long-term goal is to contribute to developing a "Healthy Delaware" and developing best practices that advance health care across the nation and across the globe.

We welcome you to the College of Health Sciences!

Daniel C. Flynn
Unidel Chair
Associate Dean for Research

205-C McDowell Hall
College of Health Sciences
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
P: 302-831-7578
F: 302-831-2382