Candace W. Burton

Dr. Candace W. Burton (she/they) is an associate professor in nursing at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Her research focuses on stress and trauma, particularly in the context of health disparities, and she is the faculty liaison for the UNLV Interdisciplinary Research Development Area in Addictions.

Dr. Burton is a trained qualitative and mixed methodologist, and has published on the social determinants of health, structural violence, the trauma of violence and abuse, and nursing education on vulnerable populations.

She holds undergraduate degrees in studies in women and gender and in nursing from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in nursing research from the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Burton is certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in Advanced Forensic Nursing, and holds a post-graduate certificate in diversity, equity, and inclusion from Cornell University. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and her innovative work has received both national and international attention from diverse audiences of advocates, researchers, and community-based care providers.

She practices as a consulting forensic nurse, and her research has been funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation among others. She teaches at all levels of nursing education on topics including care of vulnerable populations, the social determinants of health, and qualitative and research mixed methodologies.

Gender-based violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness and trauma-related mental health problems among women and their families. The more we talk about this, the less able to hide in the shadows it becomes.