IPRCE Core Research Projects
Organizational Readiness of The Georgia Trauma System to Implement the Cardiff Model
In the United States (US), 49% of serious violent crimes are not reported to the police, and this under-reporting undermines prevention efforts. The Cardiff Model for Violence Prevention is an established effective intervention developed in the United Kingdom (UK) that combines hospital and police data on violence to equip communities with the information that they need to implement site-based prevention efforts. The extent to which this promising intervention can be broadly implemented in the US is unknown. This research project aims to assess the organizational readiness of trauma centers in Georgia, along with their law enforcement and community partners, to implement the Cardiff Model. This project was designed and is being conducted with the support and involvement of the Georgia Trauma Commission thus creating a pathway for the dissemination of the results of the assessment.
Small Area Estimation for Opioid Abuse Prevention and Response
Surveillance of opioid-related epidemics and related public health action have been challenged by two barriers: (1) Multisectoral approaches are needed to reverse opioid-related epidemics, yet data sources needed to describe these epidemics are isolated within different agencies. This fragmentation impedes identifying emerging hotspots and mounting rapid responses to this dynamic epidemic. (2) The opioid epidemic has been expanding to include rural areas and, thus far, surveillance has struggled to keep pace with this shift. It has been difficult to adequately surveil the counts and rates of opioid overdoses in rural counties because of their small population sizes. This research project will apply advanced geospatial methods to integrate multiple types of surveillance data acquired from diverse sectors to rapidly create stable estimates of opioid overdose counts and rates of prescription opioids alone, heroin alone, and co-use in Georgia’s 159 counties, 108 of which are rural with populations less than 35,000. Standardized tables, maps, and reports will be created and rapidly disseminated to key stakeholders to facilitate action. Statistical programs developed to create these outputs will be packaged so that other Departments of Public Health can re-create the reports using their states’ data.
Addressing ACEs Among Hispanic Caregivers in a Pediatric Primary Care Population to Improve Child Health and Decrease Early Adversity
A team of researchers will study whether disclosure of parent/caregiver ACEs to a young child’s primary care physician accompanied by a structured conversation about the effects of these ACEs on parental and child heath can improve child health, build parental resilience, and support positive parenting behaviors.
ACEs and Suicidal Behavior in African American Women: Assessment and Prevention
African Americans are experiencing rising suicide rates, and ACEs are associated with suicide risk in this population. Unfortunately, science has lagged this increase: little is known about factors that might influence the ACEs/suicide relationship, and few interventions seek to prevent future suicide attempts among African Americans who have previously attempted suicide, though this population is at very high risk for future attempts. This project is designed to advance the field of suicide prevention for this vulnerable population by: (a) identifying risk and protective factors that influence the ACEs/suicide relationship, and by (b) rigorously testing a culturally competent, multilevel suicide prevention intervention targeting African American adults who have previously attempted suicide.