(Boston)—Diana Anderson, MD, M.Arch, assistant professor of neurology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has received a one-year, $50,000 Bridging Bioethics Research & Policymaking grant from The Greenwall Foundation for her project, “Bioethical Evaluation in Long-Term Care Design: From Framework to Federal Practice.”
This project aims to improve the design of long-term care facilities by recognizing architecture as an important factor in health and well-being. The research team has developed a bioethics-based evaluation tool that assesses whether built environments support dignity, safety, independence, social connection, and quality of life for older adults. “Building on research findings, the project will work with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to integrate ethical design considerations into long-term care planning and standards. The goal is to create healthier, more person-centered environments for older adults while providing a model that can be adapted across the broader healthcare system,” says Anderson.
Anderson and her team received a previous award from the Foundation in 2024 highlighting the need for policymakers to address long-term care issues around the built environment, currently without clinical oversight. Growing knowledge of how architecture affects behavior, well-being, and health outcomes demands that concerns about evaluating benefits and harms, freedom, and consent be thoroughly vetted.
Anderson is a board-certified healthcare architect and geriatrician. Possessing both medical and architectural degrees, Anderson combines educational and professional experience in both medicine and architecture. She has worked on hospital design projects globally and is widely published in architectural and medical journals and books. She is a frequent speaker about the impacts of healthcare design on patient outcomes and care delivery.
Anderson received her Master of Architecture degree from McGill University in Montreal and her MD from the University of Toronto. She completed a residency in internal medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center and a clinical geriatric fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. She completed an advanced fellowship in geriatric neurology and research at the VA Boston Healthcare System under the guidance of Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology at the school.
A past fellow at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, Anderson explores space design and ethics, especially in the context of nursing homes and institutional living for older adults. She frequently speaks about the impacts of healthcare design on patient outcomes, care delivery and related topics. She is co-founder of the MGB Health Design Lab, uniting clinical, architectural, and design professionals with a mission to advance the collaboration between health care and design in research; education; clinical practice and innovation; and bioethics and policy.
The Greenwall Foundation seeks to make bioethics integral to decisions in health care, policy and research. It is a nationally recognized private foundation with assets of about $100 million, awarding approximately $3-4 million annually in support of its mission to expand bioethics knowledge, with the goal of improving clinical, biomedical, and public health decision-making, policy and practice.