Patients with stabbing and gunshot wounds at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) are receiving more than medical care thanks to an NIH-supported program co-led by Nakita Lovelady, Ph.D., M.P.H., a UAMS Translational Research Institute (TRI) KL2 scholar.
Dr. Lovelady and her mentor, Nickolas Zaller, Ph.D., received the $1.42 million NIH grant in 2023 to support a hospital-based violence prevention project.
An assistant professor in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, Dr. Lovelady is in her final year of the two-year KL2 Mentored Research Career Development Award program. Dr. Zaller is a professor in the college.
“The NIH grant expands our current local research portfolio on HVIPs – building upon the preliminary findings from both my KL2 and grants from the city of Little Rock,” said Dr. Lovelady, the founding director of Arkansas’ first Hospital-based Violence Intervention Program (HVIP) – UAMS Project Heal.
The five-year phased NIH project will allow Drs. Lovelady and Zaller to refine the UAMS HVIP to address key barriers and facilitators, and later test the feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of this multi-level intervention using a hybrid effectiveness implementation approach. The project’s focus is on secondary violence prevention through hospital-community partnerships to prevent escalation and/or revictimization from firearm violence among African Americans in central Arkansas, where violent assault is greatest.
“This project represents an extension of the foundational work Dr. Lovelady has been leading for the past several years,” Dr. Zaller said. “Importantly, we are one of only six sites nationally to be selected to participate in an NIH funded research network seeking to address the growing public health issue of gun violence in our communities. I am very proud to be partnering with Dr. Lovelady in this transformative work.”
“This unique NIH grant will help us optimize our HVIP + Community model and fully test it for both intervention and implementation effectiveness, ultimately providing significant implications for scale-up within our state and across the South,” Dr. Lovelady said.
She noted that Arkansas ranks sixth nationally in firearm homicide rates, and disparities persist as the rate is significantly higher for Black males in Arkansas and nationally.
The project, titled, “The HVIP+ Community Model: A Community Violence Prevention Program in a Southern State,” is a collaboration with the team’s local community partner, Center for Healing Hearts and Spirits, led by Joyce Mosley Raynor.
As part of the project, patients may receive mental health services and social services that may help them escape a cycle of violence. Project Heal also helps victims find housing, transportation, legal assistance, and jobs.
Dr. Lovelady is a 2023 Graduate Fellow of the NIH Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials Summer Institute and a 2023 Implementation Research Institute (IRI) Fellow at Washington University. She was also honored as one of the Arkansas Times Visionaries for 2023.
“Dr. Lovelady is a pioneer in developing strategies to reduce gun-related violence in the United States,” TRI Director Laura James, M.D., said. “She is on the forefront of this issue in Arkansas and her work has tremendous implications for other states around the U.S. seeking to reduce gun-related violence.”
Geoffrey Curran, Ph.D., director of the UAMS Center for Implementation Research and TRI’s Implementation Science Scholars Program, is also a mentor for Dr. Lovelady.
“Dr. Lovelady is an emerging leader in implementation science,” Dr. Curran said. “She is breaking new ground by applying implementation science principles and strategies in the area of violence prevention.”
