University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) researcher Nakita Lovelady, Ph.D., MPH, has received $3.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to lead a three-year clinical trial aimed at reducing risky firearm behaviors among assault survivors in central Arkansas.
The award from NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) supports the UH3 phase of Project Heal, a hospital-community partnership tailored for the region most affected by violent assault.
“This grant allows us to rigorously test strategies that can help survivors of violent assault move forward in their lives,” said Lovelady, an assistant professor in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health and a graduate of the UAMS Translational Research Institute’s K12 Mentored Research Career Development Award Program. “By combining the expertise of hospitals, community organizations, and people with lived experience, Project Heal is designed to create practical solutions that prevent reinjury and promote recovery.”
The UH3 builds on Lovelady’s two-year UG3 planning grant that established a 15-member community-academic coalition and conducted 10 evidence-based quality improvement sessions with 30 stakeholders to refine intervention components and implementation strategies for central Arkansas.
Lovelady leads the project with Joyce Raynor, executive director of the Center for Healing Hearts and Spirits, who serves as a multiple principal investigator with Lovelady. Raynor played a critical role in engaging community partners during the UG3 planning grant and will continue to ensure strong support services for participants during the UH3 trial phase.
The study will test different mixes of four support services to find out which work best for survivors. These include: bedside help while patients are in the hospital, ongoing peer support, case management with service vouchers, and virtual group therapy called SELF (safety, emotions, loss and future). The study will look at whether the program helps people avoid unsafe gun behaviors and whether it improves their mental health, including stress, anxiety and depression.
The project is part of NIH’s research on community level interventions for firearm and related violence, injury and mortality prevention (CLIF-VP) initiative.
The NIH’s ongoing support reflects the promise of Project Heal to make a lasting impact in Arkansas and beyond, said Laura James, M.D., director of the UAMS Translational Research Institute.
“We are extremely proud of Dr. Lovelady and her team,” said James, also UAMS associate vice chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research. “Her work is a model for community-engaged research that addresses one of our state’s most urgent health challenges.”
Funding acknowledgment: Research reported here is supported by the NIMHD at NIH under Award Number UH3MD019172. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.