![\"Bonnie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/BonnieSpringWeb-1200x800.jpg\")
Bonnie Spring is a Krafft Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine.\t\t<\/p>\n\t\tBonnie Spring is a Krafft Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine.\t\t<\/p>\n
Bonnie Spring has always had the drive and desire to improve public health.<\/p>\n
The Florida State University professor\u2019s initial research into serious mental illness, while earning her master\u2019s and doctoral degrees at Harvard, has been cited more than 3,000 times. When further progress was stymied by a lack of objective measurement tools, the psychology graduate pivoted and retrained as a health psychologist.<\/p>\n
Spring focuses on risk behaviors such as smoking, overeating, poor diet and physical inactivity \u2014 the primary factors behind chronic adverse health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease \u2014 and ways to get people to change their behavior patterns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was having an impact through behavioral interventions that captured my heart, and being able to expand an intervention so it\u2019s large enough to be a public health benefit continues to grip my attention,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Over the past 30 years, her research has focused on both the prevention of and intervention into health-risk behaviors. She uses a variety of analysis tools, including longitudinal modeling and machine learning for predictive analytics.<\/p>\n
Spring is passionate about the suite of Multiphase Optimization Strategies, known as MOST, which is a framework that uses engineering principles to create multi-component behavioral interventions. MOST aims to create interventions that are effective, affordable, scalable and efficient, sometimes referred to as EASE.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderserved populations rarely have only one behavioral health risk, and effective interventions often have multiple components,\u201d she said. \u201cBeing able to holistically address the underlying issues as well as the behaviors tends to lead to better outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spring joined the Florida State University College of Medicine late last year, after 19 years at Northwestern University\u2019s Feinberg School of Medicine. She is the Krafft Professor of Behavioral and Social Medicine, as well as director of the College of Medicine\u2019s Florida Blue Center for Rural Health Research and Policy, which is housed in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fortunate to have attracted such a highly regarded and well-funded researcher as Bonnie Spring,\u201d College of Medicine Dean Alma Littles said. \u201cWith the college continuing to expand its research opportunities for all students, M.D. and PA as well as Ph.D., her research skill set and demonstrated commitment to mentoring will be an asset to our students, as well as our junior faculty.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer knowledge of rural health issues will help her lead the Florida Blue Center for Rural Health Research and Policy to a new level of achievement and likely influence legislation in Florida and across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The center was initially created in 2002 through a gift from the Florida Blue Foundation, Florida Blue Cross Blue Shield\u2019s philanthropic arm. Professor Heather Flynn, a clinical psychologist and researcher who chairs the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, is excited to have Spring reboot the center and use her skills to improve the lives of rural Floridians.<\/p>\n
\u201cBonnie really brings a multi-faceted and fresh vision for the center and its future that incorporates innovations in digital health research, as well as training the next generation of researchers,\u201d Flynn said. \u201cShe has been successful in integrating different digital health tools and technology \u2013 such as wearables, apps, and electronic medical records \u2013 with telehealth coaching to create successful interventions for people with multiple-risk behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spring\u2019s introduction to rural health research came courtesy of Nancy Schoenberg, Marian Pearsall Professor of Behavioral Science in the University of Kentucky\u2019s College of Medicine.<\/p>\n
Schoenberg, who has a background in anthropology, wondered whether an intervention Spring had created and implemented in the Chicago area years earlier could be adapted for use in rural populations. Schoenberg placed a cold call to Spring, and a great collaboration was born.<\/p>\n
\u201cRural residents tend to be older, sicker and poorer,\u201d Schoenberg said. \u201cBonnie has great strength in developing and implementing interventions, and I loved this one. The results were stunning, and the positive effects were sustained. I spent maybe a year and a half or two years adapting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spring and Schoenberg then went on to collaborate on a $2.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, for a clinical trial on stress and sleep in which participants logged their daily food intake and physical activity.<\/p>\n
For Spring, working in rural Appalachia was life-changing. In college, she had adopted three sustaining core values \u2013 commitment, community and creativity \u2013 to have a positive impact on the world around her. Rural health research presented a renewed opportunity to do all three and made her want \u201cto get back to the basics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now at Florida State University, Spring hopes she can bring her years of experience and commitment to train more students and ultimately engage new communities facing health care gaps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the most expensive health care in the world, and we\u2019re living in a delusional bubble,\u201d Spring said. \u201cThe demand for health care is always going to outstrip availability. You have to use what resources you have and engage the communities whose needs you\u2019re trying to meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to meet people where they are and accept them as they are, so they will accept us as partners.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bonnie Spring is a Krafft Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at the Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-117634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}