Kelly O’Connor, PhD

🚨New study alert! We explored how youths’ beliefs about guns relate to offensive & defensive gun behaviors. Key takeaway: beliefs about safety & neighborhood risks drive gun behaviors, while emotional risk beliefs can be protective.

doi.org/10.1177/0011...

Relations Between Developmental Assets and Youth Gun Violence - Kelly E. O’Connor, Sophie L. Kjærvik, Terri N. Sullivan, Nicholas D. Thomson, 2025 This study investigates the potential promotive effects of developmental assets (e.g., strengths and resources) on youth gun violence. Guided by resilience theo...

New study in Youth & Society: We examined whether developmental assets protect against youth gun violence. Findings highlight family & school assets as key promotive factors — informing multi-level prevention strategies. #GunViolencePrevention

doi.org/10.1177/0044...

Barriers and facilitators to engagement in a stepped‐care mental health service among violently injured patients and their caregivers This qualitative study aimed to identify service needs and barriers and facilitators to treatment among violently injured patients and their caregivers (e.g., parent, partner) to improve access to an....

New study in Journal of Traumatic Stress: We identified barriers & facilitators to mental health service engagement among violently injured patients & their caregivers. Findings underscore the need for integrated, trauma-informed care. doi.org/10.1002/jts....

Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...

JAMA Forum on the proposed NIH budget…

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Annual Gun Violence Data | Center for Gun Violence Solutions

Gun deaths are the leading cause of death for young people in the U.S. While all policy recommendations may not directly address youth, we believe that enacting these policies will address upstream factors to decrease the burden of gun violence on youth. Read: publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-g...

We're hiring Associate Research Scientist & Postdoctoral Associate in public health data science and data equity Yale School of Public Health

We are recruiting a Postdoctoral Associate & an Associate Research Scientist to join the Public Health Data Science and Data Equity research team at YSPH, with a primary home in our Department of Biostatistics.

Postdoctoral Associate ➡️ m.yale.edu/c4dt
Associate Research Scientist ➡️ m.yale.edu/c4dv

I’m a firearm violence researcher and people were doing this work when the government wouldn’t fund it. There’s always ways to make it happen, even in difficult times! Just have to be creative and persistent 🌟

Stay focused. Research and teaching in higher ed will always be needed. Ride the wave for now- get the opportunities you can for now and believe there will be more opportunities in the future. Your work matters!

Psychology Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Surgery Description of the ProjectDr. Thomson, Director of Research at the Injury and Violence Prevention Program (IVPP) at VCU, is accepting applications fo...

We are seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join our @VCU_IVPP research team, offering a unique opportunity for involvement in CDC- and NIH-funded research on violence prevention and mental health. RTs appreciated!
vcu.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

🚨🚨🚨
Fellow researchers: Download any CDC data you might want to use ASAP.

YRBS is already gone.
🚨🚨🚨

#AcademicSky #academicchatter #research

State reliance on federal aid, provided through grants, ranges from 20.7% of the state budget in Hawaii to 46.1% in Montana. 7 of the top 10 recipients are deep-red states.

Dear fellow scientists, Go talk to the press about what is going on. Talk to local news about how it will impact jobs. Be specific, but don't pity yourself. Instead focus on how your own situation affects local jobs, the national economy, beating the growing scientific race with China. Suggestions:

120. The Impoundment Crisis of 2025 The Trump administration's Monday spending freeze is likely to provoke a crisis over the constitutionality of "impoundment"—one that the justices could well have to resolve *very* soon.

For "One First," I wrote about Monday's OMB memo purporting to (temporarily) freeze billions of dollars of appropriated federal spending—and why it constitutes both unconstitutional and unlawful "impoundment" that's unlikely to be upheld by even *this* #SCOTUS:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/120-the-im...

If you’re in the US and you’d like to know what projects and vital services federal grants currently fund in your state, you can search here: www.usaspending.gov

And you can find the contact information for your elected representatives here: www.usa.gov/elected-offi...

They need to hear from you.

THIS and for nonprofits too. A pause in grant funding means disruption for the people they serve AND the salaries of the folks they employ. Workers who themselves struggle financially on nonprofit pay, and whose lives will be sent spiraling without a paycheck.

This will cause more poverty.

Gun Violence Trends in US Cities During the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic This cross-sectional study evaluates whether there was any variation in gun violence trends in US cities during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

New paper in @JAMA Network Open (w/ Chandler Hall & Nick Wilson) looks at gun violence trends in US cities during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find variation in both the timing & surge of gun violence between cities. Read it Open Access here: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Access to a gun in the home increases the risk of death by suicide by 300%. Store your firearms locked, unloaded, and separate from ammo, to lower the risk.

Here’s the highlight: Teens exposed to chronic stressors and systemic inequities are at high risk for developing mental health problems. We found that mindfulness training can help to protect teens from the negative impacts of everyday life stressors on momentary mindfulness & emotion regulation

Outlooked wrapped 2024:

You responded to 2,142 emails and still need to respond to 987

The emails you receive only “find you well” 38% of the time

Teams crashed on you in 52% of meetings

You, an esteemed scientist, were invited to submit to 47 predatory journals

~You should be writing more~

I need an Outlook wrapped… it’d be like

You responded to 8,732 emails & received 3x as many junk emails
October was your busiest month
You spent 347 hours in Zoom meetings & 12% of them were pointless
You had the least amount of time for writing relative to other tasks

😂 What would yours say?

Christmas came early this year… I only had one meeting today and it was canceled 🎅🏻🎁🎄

A key takeaway was that each of 3 cities who implemented public dashboards with data on gun violence (& more!) had unique characteristics (eg, size of city, proportion of vacant homes, concentration of violence) but all of them benefitted from the data. 📊 Data is a powerful tool for change!

It was amazing to hear from public officials, law enforcement, & scholars who have overcome barriers to make crime and public health data accessible to their communities

Thoughts and prayers will never keep us safe from gun violence.

They only shield legislators who use their faith as shields of inaction.

We are not helpless and gun violence is actionable. But we will not do this without research and funding.

If anyone has recommendations for app/software development partners for a digital mental health intervention, please DM me! Currently looking for recommendations since the developer I was working with fell through :/
#academicsky #digitalhealth

To play devils advocate, we once thought cursive was an essential skill. Maybe one day writing will be primarily driven by AI. Teaching them how to use AI critically could be beneficial

The work being shared at this year’s #2024FirearmResearchConf reflects the dedication, innovation, and meticulous research needed to address firearm-related harms. It’s an inspiring example of how science and advocacy can drive meaningful change.

Check out this great webinar with @mjmiller2.bsky.social @helenneville12.bsky.social and other amazing folks!!! #PsySky

I’ll be presenting at poster session #3 on my recent work to identify patterns of co-occurring risk factors for firearm homicide using NVDRS data. Looking forward to discussing this work with folks! Stop by and say hi 🙂
#2024FirearmResearchConf

“We are not going to shoot our way to a better healthcare system.”