Hongyu Yu is a UW School of Nursing PhD in Nursing Science student and one of the center’s 2025-2026 Healthy Aging Research Scholars. Her project is on “Understanding Facilitators, Barriers, Scalability and Sustainability of the Women’s Health Initiative Strong and Healthy Pragmatic Physical Activity Intervention for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: A CFIR-Guided Inquiry.” Her faculty mentors are Kerry Reding and Sarah Gimbel.
Why did you choose to go into nursing?
I think nursing and health-related subjects are fascinating. When I was little, I read detective stories, and I thought it was intriguing to find evidence and to try to solve problems. I feel like in this field it’s similar, to try to figure out what the symptoms and the lab experiments mean for the patient, what kind of disease they may have, and what kind of solution we can come up with for them to improve their health outcomes.
What made you interested in nursing research?
When I was in clinical practice it was good to build close connections to patients, but I felt like what I could do was limited, because it takes years to bring evidence into clinical practice. I want to make changes happen. Learning about nursing research will equip me with skills and thoughts on how to critique, design and conduct studies, and contribute to implementing findings into practice.
What interests you about healthy aging and working with older adults?
Healthy aging is a very complicated and comprehensive topic. I’m focusing on cardiometabolic health and cognitive health. I am interested in physical activity, diet, and sleep. These are the fundamental pillars of cardiometabolic health and cognitive health. Aging does not happen suddenly, or start one day, it is an accumulated process. I hope to figure out what may help best motivate individuals to make lifestyle improvements in the earlier stages, before their risk factors develop into diseases.
You mentioned cardiometabolic and cognitive health. Are you looking at those two aspects of health separately, or are you looking at how they’re connected?
The intersection between them, because the association of cardiometabolic health and cognitive health has already been established. There is strong evidence to say cardiometabolic conditions can impact cognitive function.
Could you briefly describe your project with the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging?
There is a huge cohort study called WHI, the Women’s Health Initiative, in the US. It’s a very famous and well-established cohort specifically for postmenopausal women.
There are a number of WHI investigators who designed the pragmatic randomized control trial for older women across the U.S. called WHISH. The full name is the Women’s Health Initiative, Strong and Healthy study. Through this study, they have tried to improve physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviors to prevent cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular disease-related deaths.
I was interviewing primary investigators, co-investigators, and post-doc fellows from the research team to understand what makes this huge program successful, and is there anything we learn from it? Is there anything we can do better?
I want to know what the facilitators and barriers might be to build evidence with a large-scale population.
What types of questions are you asking in your interview?
I used a brief survey to ask their role or training background related to this program, and developed an interview guide. I asked how this program was designed, delivered, adapted, delivered, and sustained. In each stage, was there a pivotal point, or any external factors, internal factors, or individual level factors that affected its successful implementation? Are there their takeaways or recommendations for other researchers who want to do this kind of pragmatic intervention for older people, especially older women?
Did you have past experience working with, older adults before you started your PhD program?
I live with older adults in my home, and I also met older adults in my clinical practice. Older adults and family are important for me as a Chinese person. That is an essential part of our tradition and values—something deeply rooted in our culture and spirit. We respect, honor, and care for older adults.