UB researcher named nursing school’s first Garman Professor for influential work in mental health and addictions

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Yu-Ping Chang, PhD, associate professor and associate dean for research and scholarship in the University at Buffalo School of Nursing, was named the first School of Nursing Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Professor.

The Patricia H. Garman Behavioral Health Nursing Endowment Fund Professorship was established to attract and retain the best and brightest nursing faculty, enhance research endeavors and help the school to realize its vision.

“Dr. Chang best exemplifies the wishes of the Garman family to support the enhancement of research endeavors in nursing. We are all honored to be a part of the Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman legacy,” says Marsha Lewis, PhD, professor and dean of the School of Nursing.

“Her scholarship focuses on mental health and addiction; this is particularly relevant to honor Patricia Garman’s career as a psychiatric nurse. Dr. Chang is passionate about issues related to mental health and has proven to be an excellent researcher and outstanding mentor to our tenure-track faculty in helping them develop their research agendas.”

Chang’s research in the areas of mental health, prescription drug misuse and addictions in older adults has been widely published and funded.

This summer, she was awarded $1 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to increase access to mental health care and substance abuse treatment among American Indian communities in Western New York through clinical training for graduate students in the School of Nursing and UB School of Social Work.

Chang also recently received a nearly $2 million grant from HRSA to increase the mental health and addictions workforce in Western New York through interprofessional education and training for students from the School of Nursing, School of Social Work, and the Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology in the UB Graduate School of Education.

“It is well known that on a national level the opioid epidemic has increased the need for more well-trained behavioral health and addictions specialists,” says Chang, also a member of the School of Nursing’s Promoting Health and Reducing Risk in Psychiatric Mental Health and Addictions Scholarship Team.

“Two of the significant urgent solutions to mitigate the opioid epidemic are to increase access to proper treatment, as well as to increase prevention efforts – for example, screening, assessment, behavioral counseling such as motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy, referral and relapse prevention – both of which will require sufficient, well-trained behavioral health providers.”

Chang is a fellow of the Health Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America. She earned a doctorate in nursing from Saint Louis University, and both a master’s degree in psychiatric and mental health nursing and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Kaohsiung Medical University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

She resides in Williamsville.