Felicitas A Dela Cruz DNSc, RN, FAANP
Dr. dela Cruz is Professor in the School of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University (APU), and currently, Executive Director of the Office of Assessment and Evaluation at the School of Nursing. Dr. dela Cruz has demonstrated outstanding contributions to nurse practitioner education and practice through her vision and in her development of the FNP program at the APU School of Nursing, supported by Federal (HRSA) and State (Song-Brown) training grants she obtained. She is dedicated to the development of students and faculty, and established a Filipino-American Scholarship through the AANP Foundation to enhance minority access to nurse practitioner education.
Her program of research focuses on the management and control of hypertension in Filipino-Americans. She completed and published the validation of A Short Acculturation Scale for Filipino-Americans, a measure adapted for use in cross-cultural research, which was funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research [NINR] (T32NR07072), the UCLA Asian-American Studies Center, and the Faculty Research Council at APU. In addition, she published, The illness beliefs, perceptions, and practices of Filipino Americans with hypertension, a qualitative study funded in part by NINR (3-P30NR05042-02 S1, University of Pennsylvania) and the Faculty Research Council at APU. Both studies were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (JAANP).