Citing an analogy used by those in public health fields, Tina Bloom explains that health providers wait on the banks of the river to rescue people who have fallen in and are drowning. But Bloom wants to help more and help earlier. “At some point, you start to think about what’s happening upriver,” she says. As an assistant professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing, her research focuses on safety planning for women in abusive relationships; specifically, she is designing and testing a website that might help women find ways to lessen their danger.

Tina Bloom’s research centers around a safety decision aid that was first developed by a team of researchers in Oregon with whom she has worked. The decision aid is web-based and is designed to help abused women with individualized safety planning.