Susan Jack

Dr. Susan Jack’s work is grounded in a 30-year career in public health nursing practice, management, education and research. Her program of research focuses on community-based approaches to prevent family violence and the development and evaluation of public health nursing interventions to promote maternal and child health. With Dr. Harriet MacMillan, Dr. Jack was instrumental in introducing the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) home visitation program to Canada. In Canada, she led or co-led multiple studies to evaluate the acceptability of NFP i and to explore how this program is adapted, implemented, and delivered in different regions in British Columbia and Ontario. She is the program lead for the Public Health Nursing Practice, Research and Education Program (PHN-PREP). She completed her post-doctoral training in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences (McMaster) and the Centre for Knowledge Translation (University of Alberta). Dr. Jack has been a full-time faculty member since 2003 and has taught in all levels of the BScN undergraduate and nursing graduate programs. Dr. Jack is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Nursing and served as the President, Board of Directors, Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International (2016-2020).

Current Activities

Some Active Research Projects:

British Columbia Healthy Connections Projects : the first Canadian evaluation of the NFP and its effects on prenatal, child and maternal health outcomes. This project consists of three connected studies: 1) a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the program compared to usual services to address a range of maternal and child health outcomes; 2) a mixed methods process evaluation to document how the program is implemented and delivered across five diverse health regions; and 3) an evaluation of how NFP may influence physiological responses to stress. 

Nurse-Family Partnership Intimate Partner Violence Intervention Development and Evaluation: A program of research that included studies to: 1) formatively develop and pilot a nursing intervention to identify and respond to intimate partner violence in home visiting practice; 2) an evaluation of a nursing curriculum to increase nurse home visitors’ knowledge and confidence to address intimate partner violence in practice; 3) a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the NFP intimate partner violence intervention on maternal quality of life; and 3) a process evaluation to document how the intervention was implemented and delivered. 

Adaptation of Nurse-Family Partnership Program to the Canadian Context: Studies have included: 1) a qualitative case study to determine the acceptability of delivering NFP by public health nurses working in an Ontario public health unit to young, pregnant individuals and mothers experiencing social and economic disadvantage; 2) a mixed methods study to develop, implement, and pilot a Canadian model of Nurse-Family Partnership nurse and supervisor education; and 3) a case study to document the acceptability of an alternate and novel model of reflective supervision within the Nurse-Family Partnership program. 

Delivery of Home Visiting to Services to Pregnant Individuals and Families with Young Children in Ontario: A series of research studies and quality improvement projects to describe and evaluate the delivery of public health home visiting services. 

Publications

Five Most Impactful Publications:

Jack, S.M., Orr, E., Campbell, K.A., Whitmore, C., & Cammer, A. (2023). A framework for data generation strategies in qualitative health research. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/jhn.13134 

Jack, S.M., & Phoenix, M. (2022). Conducting applied qualitative health research in the field of developmental medicine and child neurology. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 64(7), 830-839. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.15182 

Jack, S.M., Duku, E., Whitty, H., Van Lieshout, R.J., Niccols, A., Georgiades, K., & Lipman, E.L. (2022). Young mothers’ use of and experiences with mental health care services in Ontario, Canada: A qualitative descriptive study. BMC Women’s Health, 22, 214. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01804-z  

Jack, S.M., Boyle, M., McKee, C., Ford-Gilboe, M., Scribano, P., Davidov, D., Wathen, C.N., McNaughton, D., O’Brien, R., Johnston, C., Gasbarro, M., Tanaka, M., Kimber, M., Coben, J., Olds, D.L., & MacMillan, H.L. (2019). Effect of addition of an intimate partner violence intervention to a nurse home visitation program on maternal quality of life: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA, 321(16), 1576-1585. https://doi:10.1001/jama.2019.3211 

Jack, S.M., Davidov, D., Stone, C., Ford-Gilboe, M., Kimber, M., McKee, C. & MacMillan, H.L., for the NFP IPV Research Team. (2022). Factors influencing the implementation of an intimate partner violence intervention in nurse home visiting: A qualitative descriptive study. Journal of Advanced Nursing,. https://doi.10.1111/jan.15353 

To read more from Dr. Susan Jack: https://nursing.mcmaster.ca/faculty/bio/susan-jack