Snigdha Jain Wins ATS Emerging Career Award

Snigdha Jain, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at Yale (Yale-PCCSM), has won the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Assembly on Behavioral Science and Health Services Research Emerging Career Award. The honor is given to an early career individual with demonstrated potential to make outstanding scientific and scholarly contributions to lung diseases, critical illness, or sleep disorders.

Jain’s research focuses on improving the recovery of older adults hospitalized with advanced serious and critical illnesses.

“My emphasis is on outcomes beyond survival like function, cognition, and symptoms after a critical illness,” Jain said. “Illness is not over after discharge from the hospital.”

In a recent study, Jain found that among older adults hospitalized in the intensive care unit, those with Medicaid insurance, living in rural locations, or with limited English proficiency were less likely to receive skilled rehabilitation services during their critical illness hospitalization. In other research, she discovered that long-term acute care hospitals that provide post-acute care to chronically critically ill patients, such as those who have prolonged ventilator needs, performed worse in helping patients achieve functional improvement if the hospitals were located in minority-predominant areas.

Jain’s work has revealed disparities in outcomes among critically ill older adults and inequities in health care delivery that may contribute to those disparities, according to her mentor Lauren Ferrante, MD, MHS, Yale-PCCSM assistant professor of medicine. “Her growing reputation as a leader at the interface of health equity, critical care, and geriatrics exemplify the ideals recognized by this award,” Ferrante said.

Thomas Gill, MD, Humana Foundation Professor of Medicine (Geriatrics) and professor of epidemiology and of investigative medicine at Yale, emphasized Jain’s rigorous research and strong advocacy. “She has established herself as an equity-focused leader at the intersection of geriatrics and pulmonary and critical care medicine,” he said.

Jain’s research seeks to ensure each person has the chance to achieve the best possible health, said mentor Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM, FACC, Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and director of Yale’s Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, noting Jain’s drive, integrity, and creativity. “She is contributing essential insights that are helping us provide higher quality and more equitable care that optimizes long-term patient outcomes,” he said.

Jain said that the ATS’s recognition of her work has motivated her to continue this line of investigation.

“When we think of improving post-ICU or post-critical illness outcomes, we need to take into account social vulnerability and develop interventions and deliver care that improves outcomes for everyone, not just a select few,” Jain said. “It’s our responsibility as clinicians to deliver care equitably.”

The Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine is one of the eleven sections within Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine. To learn more about Yale-PCCSM, visit PCCSM's website, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.