This site is an archive of a closed Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program, provided for educational and historical purposes. Please note that this content is not routinely updated and that contact information and social links may not work.
Maren J. Coffman Ph.D., R.N.
Maren J. Coffman completed her B.S.N. at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She then spent 18 months living in Venezuela where she learned the customs of the people and the Spanish language. Her M.S.N. is from Syracuse University and her Ph.D. is from the University of Connecticut where she was given the 2005 Outstanding Doctoral Student Award. Dr. Coffman is currently an associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She recently implemented an annual study abroad experience where an interdisciplinary group of students study the culture and health care system in Guanajuato, Mexico. She is currently serving as Chair for the Southern Nursing Research Society Minority Health Research Interest Group.
Using a health literacy instructional framework, Dr. Coffman's current study aims to improve health literacy, access to health care services, and diabetes self-management in Latina immigrant women with type 2 diabetes. She was funded by the American Nurses Foundation in 2007 and has conducted several other studies funded by local grants to provide a basis for her current study. She has published her findings in numerous journals including the Journal of Nursing Scholarship and Public Health Nursing.