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Brienne Miner, MD, MHS

she/her/hers
Assistant Professor
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Additional Titles

Vice Chief for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Internal Medicine

Member, Research Career Development Committee, American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation

Early Career Faculty Working Group, Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Junior Faculty Liaison, Research Committee, American Geriatrics Society

About

Titles

Assistant Professor

Vice Chief for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Internal Medicine

Positions outside Yale

Member, Research Career Development Committee, American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation; Early Career Faculty Working Group, Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center; Junior Faculty Liaison, Research Committee, American Geriatrics Society

Biography

Residency: Yale New Haven Hospital, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

Research: Dr. Miner is an internist who completed subspecialty training in geriatric medicine, sleep medicine, and postdoctoral research training in clinical epidemiology and aging-related research. She is interested in the evaluation and management of symptoms in older adults, and whether a model that takes into account a broad array of impairments is more predictive of symptoms than the traditional disease model, where symptoms are thought to arise from specific diseases. Dr. Miner’s prior work focused on the symptoms of dyspnea, insomnia, and hypersomnia (daytime sleepiness). Her current research examines sleep deficiency, a global construct considering deficits that arise from impairments in sleep duration, quality, and/or timing. She uses self-reported and objective measures to describe this phenomenon in older adults with and without cognitive impairment.

Appointments

Education & Training

Sleep Medicine Fellowship
Yale University (2017)
MHS
Yale University (2016)
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
Yale University (2016)
Geriatric Fellowship
Yale University (2014)
Chief Resident
Yale University (2013)
Residency
Yale University (2012)
MD
SUNY Downstate College of Medicine (2009)
BS
McGill University, Biology (2003)

Research

Overview

I am a physician with advanced training in geriatrics, sleep medicine, and epidemiology. My overarching research goal is to improve symptom management in older adults. My research has evaluated dyspnea as a multifactorial geriatric health condition, establishing multiple cardiorespiratory and non-cardiorespiratory factors that are strongly associated with dyspnea in older adults. I have evaluated the epidemiology of insomnia and hypersomnia (i.e., daytime sleepiness) symptoms in persons aged 75 years and older, and identified several factors (depression, low physical activity, and primary sleep disorders) associated with the severity of insomnia and hypersomnia. This body of work informs the evaluation and management of important patient-centered outcomes in older adults.

In ongoing work, I am evaluating insomnia with objective short sleep duration as a multifactorial geriatric health condition, including the association of this phenotype with aging-related conditions. My work has demonstrated that sleep complaints in older persons are multifactorial. In addition, it shows that self-reported sleep measures may not properly characterize the severity of sleep disturbances, including recent findings that short sleep duration is frequently under-reported in older persons. These findings indicate that sleep problems may be more prevalent and severe than reported by older persons, and suggest new, comprehensive methods for evaluation of sleep complaints are needed. Hence, a focus of my ongoing work is to use validated self-report measures and objective, home-based methods to rigorously evaluate sleep deficiency in older persons. This aging-appropriate strategy may identify high-risk individuals for targeted interventions and decrease adverse outcomes and costs, all while increasing patient-centeredness in care delivery.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Aging; Geriatrics; Sleep Wake Disorders

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Brienne Miner's published research.

Publications

2024

2023

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

  • activity

    Behavioral Sleep medicine

  • activity

    BMJ Open

  • activity

    Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences

  • activity

    Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine

Clinical Care

Overview

Brienne Miner, MD, MHS, specializes in geriatric and sleep medicine with a focus on memory disorders and the evaluation and treatment of sleep disturbances. She is the vice chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Internal Medicine with a special interest in anti-ageism initiatives.

Dr. Miner’s research explores sleep deficiency and disorders in older adults, sleep assessment methods and technologies, and circadian rhythms and sleep patterns. Her work examines the accuracy of sleep-measuring tools, the link between sleep disturbances and age-related health problems, and advanced statistical methods for analyzing circadian rhythm data.

Dr. Miner is an assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

Clinical Specialties

Geriatrics; Sleep Medicine

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