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🎉We’re celebrating 35 years of #injury and #violence prevention!
In 2026, we proudly mark 35 years as a CDC Injury Control Research Center. This milestone is an opportunity to recognize some of the people whose dedication, leadership, and collaboration have shaped our center over the past three and a half decades—and who continue to advance our mission today.
🌟We invite you to follow our 35th Anniversary Spotlight Series from August through October on Facebook and LinkedIn. Throughout the campaign, we'll feature members of our Executive Team—the organizational heart of our center—and our Leadership Team, whose vision and commitment help drive our work every day.
🏆We'll also recognize current and former injury prevention partners from across Iowa, student alumni, and former Leadership Team members whose contributions helped build our center into what it is today. Their stories reflect the partnerships, innovation, and dedication that have strengthened our impact on injury prevention and #safety.
As we celebrate this milestone, we honor everyone who has been part of our journey💛
📖 Learn more about our 35th Anniversary campaign: bit.ly/4gSsDMf
ALT Around 20 people pose for a photo. Logo of the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center
🚨 UI study finds ATV/UTV crashes increased following Iowa law allowing them on roads
An Iowa law that expanded roadway access for all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and utility task vehicles (UTVs) was associated with increases in ATV/UTV crashes, severe injuries and deaths, and hospitalization costs, a University of Iowa study found.
In 2022, Iowa passed House File 2130, allowing ATVs/UTVs on secondary roads and state highways. Before the law, individual Iowa counties could choose whether to allow or restrict them on roadways.
Researchers examined crash and hospital data from January 2020 through December 2024.
📊 Among the findings:
• Overall ATV/UTV crashes increased 40.7%, from 241 before the legislation to 339 after the legislation.
• Fatal crashes increased from 6.2% to 11.8%.
• Crashes on state routes increased from 1.7% to 7.1%.
• Unplanned reoperations and ICU admissions increased from 0.5% to 7.2%.
• Hospitalization costs increased from $38,021 to $50,820.
“For me, the most striking finding was that the fatality rate nearly doubled, indicating that the nature of those crashes is changing,” said Luke Vaske, a summer research fellow in the Department of Surgery @IowaMed who led the study.
🔗 Read more: bit.ly/4AIIeXO
ALT ATV parked on a grassy field
📢 New policy brief: Suicide Prevention Among Law Enforcement
Law enforcement officers face disproportionately high rates of #suicide in the U.S., underscoring the importance of identifying prevention strategies that are evidence-informed, feasible, and responsive to the needs of officers and agencies.
As the 2025–2026 Policy Fellow with the University of Iowa Institute for Public Health Practice, Research, and Policy, Victor Soupene, a postdoctoral research scholar in the UI Departments of Occupational and Environmental Health and Emergency Medicine, focused his fellowship on this critical public health issue.
🤝 Throughout the fellowship, Victor worked alongside an external advisory board of current and former law enforcement officers, clinicians, nonprofit leaders, and University of Iowa faculty and staff. Together, this multidisciplinary group brought a range of expertise and perspectives to the project.
The result was a policy brief focused on suicide prevention in law enforcement. The brief:
🔎 Summarizes relevant Iowa state and federal policies related to suicide prevention among law enforcement officers
💡 Highlights opportunities to strengthen suicide prevention efforts
📌 Presents three key priority recommendations informed by the research and collaborative process
The brief builds on Victor’s previous research examining firearm suicide across occupational groups while incorporating the knowledge and perspectives of partners with diverse experiences in law enforcement, public health, clinical practice, and suicide prevention.
📄 Read the full policy brief: bit.ly/4hehghI
@UIowaCPH
ALT A police officer talks to a woman while writing on a notepad.
📢 New blog post: Preventing drug #overdose and #suicide deaths in #Tribal communities
Anne Helene Skinstad, emerita clinical professor of community and behavioral health in the University of Iowa College of Public Health, has dedicated her career to helping people with substance use and mental health disorders.
A trained clinical psychologist, Skinstad is a national expert on behavioral health in Tribal communities, where drug overdose and suicide rates are among the highest in the nation. Her work has reached more than 300 of the 570-plus federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Tribes across the United States, helping communities identify and implement solutions that work for them.
🗨️ “In my department, community-based participatory programming is something we do and research. It’s the gold standard of community work. In the Native community, it’s the only way to do it. We often refer to it as tribally driven, community-based participatory programs.”
Read our interview with Skinstad about:
🌱How she first got involved in Tribal health and safety;
💙Her efforts to strengthen the Tribal behavioral health workforce;
🤝Her recommendations for working with Tribal communities.
Link to blog🔗 bit.ly/3SBrbFN
[Skinstad pictured right in 2011 photo]
ALT Three people pose for a photo; the middle person is holding an award.
🚜 Farming is one of the nation’s most dangerous occupations. Add #dementia or memory loss to the equation, and the risk of serious #injury becomes even greater, according to a new University of Iowa study.
📊 The study, led by Kanika Arora, associate professor of health management and policy at the University of Iowa College of Public Health found that older adults with dementia who experienced farm-related injuries were more likely to suffer severe injuries and require intensive care or surgery than older adults with dementia who were injured outside #farm settings.
💬“Falls caused 94% of traumatic injuries in individuals with dementia alone but accounted for only 35% of injuries in those with both agricultural injuries and dementia. Non-fall mechanisms on the farm may be inherently more severe.”
⚠️Compared with nonfarming older adults with dementia, older farmers with dementia experienced a broader range of injury causes, including motor vehicle incidents and environmental hazards.
🐑Most dementia safety programs, Arora said, focus on residential settings while overlooking farm environments that include hazards such as livestock, heavy equipment, and unsecured firearms.
💬 “They also fail to reflect the lived realities of farming communities, where work is deeply tied to identity and purpose and full retirement is relatively uncommon. Consequently, standard dementia safety recommendations—such as removing access to tractors or ceasing work—can feel intrusive or impractical, leading to low adherence.”
🔗 Go here to read the full blog article: bit.ly/3TbxCiU
ALT Senior adult couple stands by the fence and looks at a herd of cattle in the pasture.
🚗 What should parents and caregivers know about child passenger and hot car safety?
We asked Brenda Vergara, outreach program coordinator for the Injury Prevention and Community Outreach Program @UIchildrens. She works with community partners to promote child passenger, bicycle, and ATV safety.
As a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST) and instructor, Vergara oversees the hospital’s car seat distribution program and helps ensure that families with newborns receive guidance on properly installing infant car seats before leaving the hospital.
In our Q&A, she shares practical guidance on:
👶 Avoiding common car seat mistakes
✅ Identifying counterfeit car seats
☀️ Preventing tragedies involving children left behind in hot cars
“I stepped into this role after my own kids were already out of the car seat stage—and I can see now that I made plenty of mistakes. It really showed me that most parents aren’t doing anything wrong on purpose—we all want our kids to be safe, we just may not have all the information.”
Read the full Q&A for tips on how families can keep children safer in cars: bit.ly/4oTKi9I
#ChildPassengerSafety #HotCarSafety
ALT Brenda Vergara stands outside of an open car door smiling at a young child in a car seat
🆕 A new University of Iowa study highlights how #suicide varies across #rural communities in America. Rural communities differ widely in access to health care and treatment and community resources.
While individual risk factors matter, they explain only part of the story. Where someone lives within rural America can shape whether they receive mental health or substance use treatment before a suicide death.
Researchers analyzed more than 42,000 suicide deaths in rural U.S. counties between 2013 and 2022 and found that 30% had a documented history of mental health or substance use treatment.
💡The study shows that gaps in treatment are closely tied to community- and system-level barriers. Decedents without documented treatment were more likely to live in areas with:
• Fewer mental health providers
• Fewer primary care physicians
• Higher rates of uninsured adults
• Greater income inequality
• Poorer overall community mental health indicators
📈At the same time, disparities at the individual level persist. Men, older adults, racial and ethnic minority populations, and people with lower educational attainment were less likely to have received treatment, pointing to how individual and structural risks intersect.
🌱The takeaway: Rural communities are diverse. Understanding suicide risk requires moving beyond individual-level explanations and addressing the community- and system-level barriers that shape access to care and treatment and community resources.
🔗 Link to full publication: bit.ly/3Q14UzK
ALT New Publication. County-level vulnerability is associated with mental health and substance use treatment among rural suicide decedents: A national multi-year cross-sectional study. The Journal of Rural Health. Photo of a rural downtown Logo of the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center
📢 New blog post: 🎓We interviewed @uiowa alumna Anne Abbott, assistant professor in the School of Public and Population Health @BoiseState.
In addition to teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses in health #communications, public health policy approaches, and program evaluation, Abbott is working to prevent teen mental health crises in Idaho through a community-academic partnership called Communities for Youth.💙
🏫Three years ago, Abbott earned her PhD from @UIowaCPH in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health, with a focus on health communication. During this time, she worked on several projects for @IowaHHS, including an evaluation of Iowa’s Rape Prevention Education Program with the UI IPRC.
💬 In this Q & A, Abbott discusses what drew her to #violence prevention, some professional skills that advance prevention, and her advice for #injury and violence prevention students.
🔗 Go to the blog post: bit.ly/3PUGQ1p
ALT Six people posing on the side of a football field with T-shirts that say "Communities for Youth"
🚲 A new University of Iowa study explores what influences the #safety of adolescents’ bicycling routes to school — and whether popular navigation apps are helping or hindering safe route choices.
Using GPS and helmet camera data from 32 adolescents (ages 10–15) and survey responses from both students and parents, researchers evaluated the safety of routes based on environmental, traffic, and roadway characteristics.
🔎 Key findings:
• Younger students and those living in more bicycle-friendly neighborhoods selected safer routes.
•Sidewalk and street riding were associated with lower safety scores compared to bicycle paths. 70% of trip time was spent riding on sidewalks.
• Routes suggested by Komoot — as well as the routes students actually chose — were safer than those recommended by Google Maps bicycle routing.
The study highlights the importance of:
✅ Investing in safer #bicycling infrastructure
✅ Supporting parents and students in developing safe bicycling behaviors and route-selection skills
✅ Improving navigation tools to better prioritize bicyclist safety
🔗 Link to the full publication: bit.ly/4urmqwi
ALT New Publication. On the road to school: A naturalistic study of adolescent bicyclist route safety. Journal of Safety Research. Logo of the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center. A group of children arriving at school. One adolescent is walking his bike.
UIowa Injury Center retweeted
Learn how SAVIR Member Dr. Kari K. Harland bridges data and humanity to prevent intimate partner and teen dating violence in this SAVIR member spotlight.
Read her profile at buff.ly/ZJfGhPY
🚜 New research uses AI to better understand agricultural injuries
Agriculture remains one of the most dangerous industries in the U.S., yet injuries are often underreported—making it harder to design effective safety solutions.
A UI IPRC pilot study tackled this gap by analyzing over 2,400 real-world agricultural incidents using advanced machine learning. This study was a collaboration with the Iowa Initiative for Artificial Intelligence at the College of Engineering.
🔍 What researchers found:
➡️ Their models were able to accurately predict whether injuries were fatal or non-fatal.
➡️ Key factors influencing severity include:
o Helmet use
o Age of the victim
o Type of equipment or hazard involved
➡️️ Context matters: factors like location and a person’s role in the incident can change outcomes in meaningful ways.
💡 These findings offer practical, data-driven insights to support targeted safety strategies and inform policy—helping stakeholders take a more proactive approach to agricultural safety.
🔗 Link to full publication: bit.ly/4fh9Rib
ALT New Publication. Agricultural Injury Severity Prediction Using Integrated Data-Driven Analysis: Global Versus Local Explainability Using SHAP. Safety A farm field during sunset Logo of the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center
New University of Iowa research sheds light on #rural teens’ exposure to #firearm violence and how these experiences shape their beliefs about firearm safety.
Researchers surveyed more than 3,200 adolescents (ages 13–18) at the 2021 National FFA Convention to better understand their experiences with firearm-related violence.
🔍What did they find?
• Over one-third (35%) had experienced a school lockdown due to potential firearm violence concerns.
• Nearly half (46%) knew someone who had been injured or killed by gunfire — and among these adolescents, 46% knew someone with an unintentional injury/death.
• About 10% had personally witnessed someone being threatened with a firearm.
• Teens who had experienced a lockdown were more likely to agree with multiple firearm safety interventions.
• Participants who knew someone that had been injured or killed by firearms had higher proportions that believed firearms in the home made them safer.
🔗 Link to the full study published in the American Academy of Pediatrics: bit.ly/4doaR2E
ALT New publication: Rural Teen Exposure to Firearm violence Silhouettes of two teenage boys at dusk Logo of the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center
🎉 Today, we mark a big milestone – 10 years of our Injury Blog!
Our monthly Injury Blog has brought together researchers, students, and injury and violence prevention partners to share research, ideas, and stories.
💛 We’re grateful to everyone who has read, contributed, and supported this work. Stay tuned – there's more ahead! #Blogiversary
🔗 Link to our full blog: bit.ly/4e7KzTd
📢 New blog post –A spotlight on rural #veteran suicide.
Josh Gautreaux is a PhD candidate in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. He studies how veterans’ use of Veterans Administration (V.A.) services affects #suicide rates during what is known as the ‘deadly gap’—the first year after a service member returns to civilian life, when veterans face an increased risk of suicide and substance use.
He spoke about his dissertation research in March 2026, when he joined the UI IPRC and other CDC-funded Injury Control Research Centers for a congressional briefing in Washington D.C. This event highlighted the importance of mental health and injury prevention research.
“I think that the higher we get in academia, the less represented veterans are,” Gautreaux said. “I’m speaking for and representing a lot of my brothers and sisters who don’t have this opportunity.”
🔗 Go here to read the full post: bit.ly/4mMk87S
ALT A man speaks in front of a podium with a screen behind him that says: Investing in the next generation: How research training strengthens our response to rural veteran suicide risk.
The #SAVIR2026 conference is April 13-15 in Providence, RI. We are excited to be exhibiting our center!
If you are attending, stop by our table to learn about our #rural injury and violence prevention research and connect!
ALT City skyline; SAVIR logo
💛Tomorrow 3/25 is #1DayForIowa, the University of Iowa's 24-hour online giving day!
Your gift can support our center's critical work in #injury and #violence prevention. Every gift makes an impact!
Give here: 1dayforiowa.org/iprc26
ALT One Day for Iowa logo; Groups of people posing for a photo
📢 New blog post
A new University of Iowa study found that mental illness is linked to #violence overall, but not specifically to #firearm violence or mass shootings.
Researchers analyzed data from a sample of 4,550 individuals incarcerated for less than two years from the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, a large database of approximately 25,000 incarcerated adults. The study was published in Justice Quarterly.
🔗 Go here to read the full post: bit.ly/482VQQE
ALT Man in orange clothing inside an empty jail room
The UI IPRC joined our fellow CDC Injury Control Research Centers (ICRCs) for a congressional briefing in Washington D.C. about the importance of mental health and #injury prevention research.
Josh Gautreaux, PhD student @UIowaCPH and Marine Corps Veteran, presented "Investing in the Next Generation: How Research Training Strengthens Our Response to Rural Veteran Suicide Risk."
#rural #veterans #suicide @UMInjuryCenter @UNC_IPRC
A new @uiowa multi‑phase study developed and tested a patient decision aid (PtDA) tailored for Reserve and National Guard women #Veterans to promote safe #firearm storage and #suicide prevention through informed decision-making.
Researchers used interviews, surveys, and user‑testing to develop and refine the PtDA based on Veteran and provider input.
Researchers found:
➡️ Veterans reported high satisfaction with the PtDA’s information, tone, and preventative approach.
➡️ Among those using shared decision‑making (SDM), nearly half had loaded, accessible firearms, and 70% said SDM made them more likely to create and act on a safety plan.
Veterans’ high satisfaction with this PtDA indicates its potential to encourage firearm safety planning, engage support, and foster firearm safety conversations to prevent suicide among women Veterans.
🔍 Learn more about the study: bit.ly/4aWc54d
ALT New Publication. Development of a Patient Decision Aid to Prevent Firearm Suicide Among US Women Reserve and National Guard Veterans Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM) Two women talk at a table. One has a military uniform and the other has business attire. Logo of the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Center