Carol Wanyo

Bio

Dr. Carol Wanyo brings over 30 years of population based, public health nursing experience servicing diverse, underserved populations in the clinical and community settings. She is passionate in applying her years of experience as a nurse executive, clinician, educator, and researcher to nursing students at Mount Saint Mary College (MSMC). 

Dr. Wanyo has experience teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels on population health, public health nursing practice, health policy, leadership, historical nursing, theory, and research. Dr. Wanyo engages her students to learn from real world experiences through her teaching projects and classroom activities. Dr. Wanyo's research focuses on population health and nursing science, public health nursing practice, historical nursing, chronic disease prevention, leadership, emergency preparedness and maternal/infant/child health. Her current research focuses on historical nursing addressing poverty, diversity, and social injustices at the turn of the century. Her most recent research, "Poised and Prepared" : Lillian Wald and the Henry Street Settlement to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, was published in the November/December 2023 issue of Public Health Nursing and presented in March 2022 at the 5th Agnes Dillon Randolph International Nursing History Conference hosted at the University of Virginia School of Nursing. 

Dr. Wanyo’s work is focused on health promotion and disease prevention in community settings through partnership and collaboration. Dr. Wanyo has directed, planned, and coordinated MSMC nursing students in delivering quality community based educational programs and interventions within and throughout our neighboring counties. Her work with West Point Military Academy, Keller Army Community Hospital has earned her the Coin of Excellence Award for directing and coordinating MSMC students in delivering over 4,000 influenza vaccinations in the Fall of 2023. Dr. Wanyo has partnered with American Lung Association and Newburgh Schools to implement MSMC nursing students to deliver the Open Airways for Schools (OAS) program, an evidence based intervention that promotes asthma self – management to elementary children.

Dr. Wanyo is the past Director of Public Health Nursing at the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral and Community Health in Poughkeepsie, New York. As the director of the Public Health Nursing division, Dr. Wanyo developed, and managed numerous populations based programs in the areas of Maternal Infant/Child Health, Chronic Disease, Immunization, Communicable Disease Control, Lead Poisoning Prevention, Children with Special Needs Program, and Injury Prevention. She served as a nursing clinician and administrator for the Certified Home Health Agency, Licensed Home Care Service Agency, Long Term Home Health Care Program and Article 28 clinic. Dr. Wanyo led the countywide, multidisciplinary public health response during H1N1 and most recently managed the communicable disease and nursing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dr. Wanyo has extensive experience in developing population based quality services including implementing a countywide coalition to address the opioid crisis in the Maternal Child Health population, enhancing home visiting antepartum care to mothers who are exposed to opioid substances, implementing the first county breast feeding clinic, and implementing a county wide health care system change to enhance forensic nursing services.

Dr. Wanyo spearheaded and chaired the first countywide Chronic Disease Coalition in Dutchess County and served on healthcare advisory committees at the state and local levels as a consultation on population health, community health assessment, implementation of community health improvement planning and system changes. Dr. Wanyo has served on the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) Million Hearts New York State Learning Collaborative to design and implement population and system change interventions for diverse, underserved populations with pre-diabetes, diabetes, and hypertension. Through this project, Dr. Wanyo developed educational health promotion programs that were implemented in the community by MSMC students. Her work has been featured nationally on the Association of Public Health Nursing website for developing preventive health nursing interventions to control hypertension in diverse populations. Currently, she participates in the New York State Public Health Association Professional Advisory Committee to advocate for the role of nurses in addressing health equity to underserved populations at the national, state, and regional levels.

Dr. Wanyo’s achievements in her public health nursing work on addressing maternal and infants’ exposure to opioids has earned her the 2018 Nursing Education Alumni Association Achievement Award for Nursing Service and the induction to the Nursing Hall of Fame at Teacher’s College, Columbia University in recognition and appreciation for her extraordinary contributions to nursing practice. Dr. Wanyo is a 2021 graduate from Pace University where she earned her PhD in Nursing. Carol is board certified in Advanced Public Health Nursing. 

Degrees
Pace University, Pleasantville, NY Doctoral in Philosophy of Nursing - 2021
Teachers College, Columbia, NY Master of Arts in Nursing, Concentration: Administrative Role, Executive Program for Nurses - 1990
State University of New York at New Paltz Bachelor of Science in Nursing - 1985
Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, NY Associate of Applied Science in Nursing - 1981

Courses
NUR 3001 Nursing Research for Evidence Based Practice
NUR 3650 Professional Nursing Issues
NUR 4020 Community Health Nursing

Specializations/Areas of Interest
Public health nursing science education
Population health management
Nursing Leadership
Maternal/child/family health
Chronic disease prevention
Emergency preparedness
Substance use disorder
Social determinants of health

Memberships and Professional Associations

• American Public Health Association, Public Health Nursing Section - Research Committee Member
• American Association of Community Health Nursing Educators - Research Committee Member
• American Association for the History of Nursing - Member
• Eastern Nursing Research Society - Member
• Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society (STTI) invited member since 2016, Chapters - Mu Epsilon, Mount Saint Mary College and Omega Delta, Pace University
• New York State Public Health Association - Member
• New York State Public Health Association, Professional Advisory Committee - Member

Achievements/Awards

•  2024 Recipient of the Barbara Brodie Nursing History Fellowship, a $3,000 award from the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, University of Virginia to investigate public health nursing in the 1900's and the 1960's on caring for families, mothers and children affected by the social injustices. 
•  Advanced Public Health Nursing Board Certification through the ANCC since December 2016
• West Point Coin of Excellence Award for vaccination support during their influenza campaign in 2023
• West Point Military Academy Award for vaccination support during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 
• Achievement Award for Nursing Service, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2018 
•  Nursing Hall of Fame, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2018 
•  New York State Department of Health Public Health Works 2009 Honor Roll Award. 
• Current BLS Certification. 

Publications

• Wanyo, C. A. (2023). Wald's leadership: Public health nurses’ response to the 1918 influenza
  pandemic. Public Health Nursing, 40(6), 868-875.
• Wanyo, C. (in press) Population Health Care: Access, Cost and Quality in Nickitas, D., Middaugh, 
  D. & Aries, N. (Eds) Policy and politics for nurses and other health professionals, 4th edition. 
•  Wanyo, C. (in press) History of Public and Community Health Nursing in M. Stanhope and J.
  Lancaster (Eds) Public Health Nursing: Population-Centered Health Care in the Community,
  11th edition. 
• Wanyo, C., (2021) “Poised and Prepared”: Lillian Wald and the Henry Street Settlement Nurses
  response to the 1918 influenza pandemic. Available from ProQuest Dissertation and Theses 
  Global. 
• Sagar, P. L., Owen, N. S., Sagar, D. Y., Brewer, A., & Wanyo, C. (December 3, 2013). Growing
  Transcultural Nursing at Mount Saint Mary College. Poster Presentation. Lehman College, 
  City University of New York (CUNY), Bronx, NY.