11/06/2023
By Hsien-Yuan Hsu

You are invited to join the AY23-24 UML Center for Health Statistics Seminar Series.

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 8
Time: Noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Coburn Hall 275
Speaker: Lei Zhang and William Hillegass
Topic: Community-Engaged Gun Violence Prevention with a Stepped-Wedge Trial Design

Abstract:
The Mississippi Violence Injury Prevention (MS VIP) project is a group of community members, clinicians, and researchers in Jackson, Mississippi, who are focused on reducing the impact of gun violence on their communities. The project, hosted at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) – the state’s only level one trauma center – plans to evaluate community-shaped interventions to prevent firearm injury in terms of their impact on firearm crimes, injuries, and mortality, as well as their individual, neighborhood, and citywide economic effects. The team includes leaders from several community-based organizations with a long history of engagement with violence prevention work in Jackson, including the People’s Advocacy Institute, Mississippi Public Health Institute, Strong Arms of Jackson, and Operation Good. The interventions to be studied are being developed through a two-year community-engaged design process, and will be implemented in a three-year step-wedge cluster design delivered via screening, brief intervention, and referral for treatment (SBIRT) that will be offered to firearm-injured patients who live in the Jackson metropolitan area and are treated in the UMMC Emergency Department for a firearm injury. A simulation study based upon results of similar community-engaged interventions estimated the potential for a 35% ±15% reduction in gun violence over the three-year study period. This would translate into an estimated saving of 6,120 quality-adjusted life years that would otherwise be lost, with anticipated $62 million in tax burden savings due to reduced life-time medical, disability, and criminal justice system expenses.

Speakers' Bio:
Lei Zhang is professor and associate dean for research and scholarship in School of Nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). He also holds the secondary appointments as professor of data science in UMMC’s John D. Bower School of Population Health and professor of Health Administration in School of Health Related Professions. Prior to becoming an associate dean, Zhang served as director and chief research biostatistician of Office of Health Data and Research at the Mississippi State Department of Health. Currently he is the PI for the Mississippi Violence Injury Prevention (MS VIP) program funded by the NIH on firearm injury and mortality prevention. He is also the PI for the Mississippi Violence Again Women and Substance Use Prevention Initiative focusing on the intersection of intimate partner violence (IPV) and substance use disorder (SUD) funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

William Hillegass is a cardiologist and associate professor at Department of Data Science in John D. Bower School of Population Health at UMMC. He has been involved in the design, conduct, and/or analysis of 75 prospective studies and clinical trials as well as multiple observational studies. The observational studies are largely longitudinal clinical and population health studies/analyses utilizing multiple designs, methods, and data types (claims, electronic health record, area level data, economic, unstructured data). Dr. Hillegass has expertise in health economic and simulation studies.