Dr. Yu-Ping Chang is the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship at the University at Buffalo’s School of Nursing and is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Nursing. She was named the University at Buffalo’s first Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman professor, which is an endowment set up to honor exemplar nurse researchers in the area of mental health and addictions.

Dr. Chang is committed to promoting the impact of addictions nursing, especially in the areas of primary research, translational research, teaching/learning innovation, workforce development, and community partnership in addictions nursing. Her accomplishments focus on the provision of high-value, integrated behavioral health and primary care services for underserved and rural populations. Her novel program of research focuses on identifying incidents and correlates of prescription opioid misuse in older adults, and developing primary care-based behavioral interventions to reduce their misuse. She has implemented team-based behavioral interventions for addictions in primary care settings, and created inter-professional educational modules designed to train nursing and behavioral health professionals to provide these services.

Dr. Chang earned her BS in nursing and her MS in psychiatric and mental health nursing from Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She earned her PhD in nursing from Saint Louis University.

Expertise: Substance use and mental health; Prescription opioid use and chronic pain management with a special interest in older adults; Behavioral interventions for risk reduction; Caregiving and medication management for individuals with dementia; Integrated behavioral health and primary care especially for underserved and rural populations.