Research projects

Aim: High School RIO™: Reporting Information Online is the internet-based data collection tool used in the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study. This study, currently the only surveillance study of all time-loss injuries in a national sample of U.S. high school athletes, was first implemented during the 2005/06 academic year and has been maintained annually. We capture athletic exposure (number of athlete practices and number of athlete competitions per week), injury (body site, diagnosis, severity, etc) and injury event (mechanism, activity, position/event, field/court location, etc.) data weekly throughout the academic year using certified athletic trainers (ATCs) as data reporters. By understanding the who, what, why, where and how of injuries, we can offer recommendations to make sports as safe as possible for student athletes

Principal investigator: Dawn Comstock, PhD, MPH

Co-investigators: Arakkal and Bihl

Which sports are studied

Study reports

Below are links to the annual summary reports from the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study. 

Original High School RIO™ study of 100 nationally representative schools reporting for the initial 9 sports of interest:

• 2005-06
• 2006-07
• 2007-08
• 2008-09
• 2009-10
• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2012-13
• 2013-14
• 2014-15
• 2015-16
• 2016-17
• 2017-18
• 2018-19

Expanded High School RIO™ study of a convenience sample of US schools reporting for all sports of interest:

• 2008-09 Convenience Sample
• 2009-10 Convenience Sample
• 2010-11 Convenience Sample
• 2011-12 Convenience Sample
• 2012-13 Convenience Sample
• 2013-14 Convenience Sample
• 2014-15 Convenience Sample
• 2015-16 Convenience Sample
• 2016-17 Convenience Sample
• 2017-18 Convenience Sample
• 2018-19 Convenience Sample

Aim: To generate pilot data evaluating the efficacy of a prophylactic sports injury prevention program aimed to reduce musculoskeletal injury risk after athletes return to play following a sport-related concussion.

Principal Investigator: David Howell, PhD, ATC

Aim: In response to the urgent need for ethics-informed guidance on the return to college sport amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this project will: 1) Produce a guidance document for decision makers in college and 2) Produce a manuscript that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal detailing the ethical tensions, practical considerations, and procedural aspects that should be involved in such a decision making process for a broader academic audience.

Principal Investigator: Christine Baugh, PhD, MPH

Aim: To examine, in the Mountain West, the potential adoption of emergency department discharge practices that include counseling on limiting access to guns during times of mental health crisis. Also, we will examine the practices and perspectives of law enforcement, gun retailers, and shooting range proprietors about offering temporary safe storage of firearms for families of suicidal patients.

Principal investigator: Carol Runyan, PhD, MPH

Co-investigators: Marian Betz, MD, MPH, Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH, and Greg Tung, PhD, MPH

Aim: Over a two-year period, our team aims to use mixed methods (qualitative + quantitative) to examine the perspectives of suppliers (ranges, retailers, and LEAs in Colorado and Washington) and users (firearm owners and family members in Colorado and Washington) about statewide voluntary firearm storage maps, including participation, usage, and preferred dissemination. We will also develop an implementation toolkit for other states, informed by interviews with stakeholders in the 11 other states already considering or creating maps.

Principal investigators: Marian Betz, MD, MPH and Sara Brandspigel, MPH

Aim: To evaluate the utility of a brief educational video in improving safe firearm storage and knowledge surrounding lethal means restriction among caregivers. 

Principal investigator: Maya Haasz, MD

Aim: To: (1) explore diverse stakeholders perspectives to develop a conceptual framework of firearm retirement and compare emerging concepts/constructs to theoretical frameworks informing driving retirement; and (2) develop a culturally competent prototype intervention.

Principal investigator: Marian Betz, MD, MPH

Co-investigator: Joseph Simonetti, MD, MPH

Aim: This study compares driving performance impairment in occasional and daily marijuana users, before and after smoking marijuana, using a driving simulator. See the Driving Study page for more information. 

Principal investigator: Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH

Aim: To apply the model of a clinical decision rule to a public health intervention, through tiered assessment of brief older driver screening in ambulatory care settings followed by referral for more comprehensive testing.

Principal investigator: Marian Betz, MD, MPH

Aim: To generate empirical evidence for understanding the dynamics, mechanisms, determinants, and consequences of mobility in senior drivers and for developing effective interventions to ensure safe mobility for older people.  With a prospective cohort design, the AAAFTS Senior Driver Cohort Study will involve enrolling a sample of at least 3,000 active drivers from five states located across the U.S. and following them for a minimum of five years.

Principal investigators: Carolyn DiGuiseppi, MD, PhD, MPH and Marian Betz, MD, MPH

Aim: This study investigates portable devices that use psychomotor and oculomotor measures, and blood biomarkers, for their predictive value in identifying impaired driving in an advanced driving simulator laboratory.

Principal Investigator: Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH

Aim: In collaboration with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the firearms community, this study examines the implementation and impacts of Gun Shop Projects (GSPs), community-driven suicide prevention partnerships aimed at temporarily reducing access to firearms during times of crisis. GSPs have the potential to optimize implementation of community-level means reduction and safe storage strategies through partnership between the firearms community (retailers, ranges, and other businesses) and local public or community health agencies. By conducting the first ever rigorous process and outcome evaluation of GSPs, this study will provide critical information about the effective implementation of GSPs and their impact on suicides involving firearms.

Principal investigators: Erin Wright-Kelly, DrPH, MA and Beverly Kingston, PhD

Co-investigators: Marian Betz, MD, MPH and Eric Sigel, MD

Aim: The SAFETY Study is a collaboration between Northeastern University, the Colorado School of Public Health, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The project aims to understand parent responses to safety counseling in the emergency department (ED). Ultimately, our goal is to help prevent youth suicide by strengthening counseling for parents of adolescents who visit the ED for a mental health emergency. The SAFETY Study is working with several Colorado Hospitals. The study has received approval from the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board (COMIRB protocol #17-0205).

Principal investigator: Carol Runyan, PhD, MPH

Co-investigators: Sara Brandspigel, MPH and Marian Betz, MD, MPH

Aim: To examine, in the Mountain West, the potential adoption of emergency department discharge practices that include counseling on limiting access to guns during times of mental health crisis. Also, we will examine the practices and perspectives of law enforcement, gun retailers, and shooting range proprietors about offering temporary safe storage of firearms for families of suicidal patients.

Principal investigator: Carol Runyan, PhD, MPH

Co-investigators: Marian Betz, MD, MPH, Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH, MPH, and Greg Tung, PhD, MPH

Aim: This study seeks to explore female veterans' perspectives regarding firearm suicide, the perspectives of their family, and perspectives of their mental health and primary care providers. 

Co-investigator: Joseph Simonetti, MD, MPH

Aim: Needs assessment consisted of qualitative interviews with syringe exchange programs and a multi-mode survey with registered voters in counties with syringe services programs. The purpose was to support the development prevention of prevention and intervention services in areas that have been identified as at increased risk of HIV, HBV, and HCV outbreaks among populations with injection drug use risk factors.

Principal investigator: Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH

Other faculty: Angela Lee-Winn, PhD, MA and Sara Brandspigel, MPH

Aim: The project will use simple electronic health records (EHR) interventions at 12 diverse EDs to decrease opioid exposures and achieve pain relief with non-opioid alternatives to improve care in our communities. This project will provide evidence for a cost-effective solution that is not interruptive or workload intensive for providers and can be easily scaled to other emergency departments and health systems. We will use EHR based clinical decision support (CDS) to make it easier for providers to align with evidence based best practices for alternatives to opioids (ALT)

Principal investigator: Jason Hoppe, DO

Aim: In this study we exploit the increase in access that occurred with the legalization of recreational marijuana to assess the impacts on opioid utilization and opioid related harm (abuse, dependence, poisonings and mortality). While individuals with specific medical conditions had access prior to recreational legalization, that access was not uniform throughout the state as local jurisdictions could choose to ban dispensaries. Similarly, even with legalization, jurisdictions could ban stores. We make use of this geographic variation with respect to bans on medical and recreational marijuana outlets as well as differential access to medical marijuana stores based on underlying health conditions to assess the impact of the policy change and growth in the number of stores on prescription drug use and harm within these markets. By combining information on the number of registered medical and recreational outlets with information on sales tax revenue, we are able to create a new measure of exposure that improves upon prior measures by also reflecting the size of the market. We link this information on marijuana market exposure to prescription drug utilization and harms available in the Colorado All Payers Claims Database (APCD). Difference-in-difference methods allow us to identify the effects of living in exposed and growing markets while controlling for broader state-level trends in opioid prescribing and abuse. Given weaknesses of the APCD, we also evaluate effects using other data, including the National Vital Statistics Survey, Hospital Emergency Department data, Hospital Discharge data, and poison center calls. Our study will be the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of whether increasing access to legal marijuana actually reduces opioid utilization and harm.

Principal investigator (local): Greg Tung, PhD, MPH 

Aim: In collaboration with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, IVPC is leading a new national peer learning team to engage state health departments in child maltreatment prevention activities and leadership.

Principal investigator: Sara Brandspigel, MPH

Aim: This career-development award funds investigator protected time to learn methods of dissemination and implementation in support of the development of electronic health record-based tools to improve testing for child physical abuse.

Principal investigator: Daniel Lindberg, MD

Aim: The Injury Center (IVPC) was awarded a contract to serve as evaluation partners on a CDC grant to utilize a collective impact approach to increase Safe, Stable and Nurturing Relationships and Environments for children in order to reduce child maltreatment. This project uses a developmental evaluation approach.

Principal investigator (evaluation): Carol Runyan, PhD, MPH

Co-investigator: Sara Brandspigel, MPH

Aim: This grant is a collaborative effort between the CDC, the University of Colorado’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The overall aim of this grant is to build on our prior grant, expanding the Communities That Care (CTC) model targeting the reduction of youth violence in a high risk Denver community. The grant is focused on community and policy level change. 

Principal investigator: Beverly Kingston, PhD

Aim: State-wide school-based adolescent health surveillance survey, including the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and school survey of policies and practices.

Principal investigator: Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH