Runyan wins APHA award for distinguished career in injury control

November 19, 2014

Dr. Carol Runyan

Carol Runyan, PhD, adjunct professor of health behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and one of the nation’s foremost scholars addressing violence as a public-health problem, was awarded the 2014 Distinguished Career Award from the American Public Health Association’s Injury Control and Emergency Health Services (ICEHS) Section at the association’s annual meeting in New Orleans this week.

The ICEHS section embraces all professionals interested in unintentional injury, violence, emergency health services and emergency preparedness, including experts in epidemiology, medicine and research. The distinguished career award is presented for outstanding dedication and leadership in the field of injury control, with contributions and achievements that have significant and long-term impact on the field.

Runyan is professor of epidemiology and of community and behavioral health at the Colorado School of Public Health and of pediatrics in the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine. She also directs Colorado’s Pediatric Injury Prevention, Education and Research (PIPER) program, a collaborative initiative of the UC schools of public health and medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

She earned a Master of Public Health from University of Minnesota and doctorate in health behavior and health education from University of North Carolina. In 2012, she was honored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the twenty most influential leaders in the injury field over the last 20 years.

Prior to leaving for Colorado, Runyan was a faculty member from 1984 to 2011 at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she helped found and for 22 years directed the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center. She was a tenured professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health’s health behavior department.

Runyan’s research over the past 20 years has focused on violence prevention (including campus violence, violence against women, homicide, and suicide); worker safety, especially among young workers; and injuries in the home environment, including fires, poisoning and safe storage of firearms. She has conducted studies that address attitudes, beliefs and practices related to clinician practices for patient counseling (e.g., pediatric anticipatory guidance and family violence) as well as parental practices to address home safety for children and adolescents.

Her current research addresses education of parents to reduce violence risk among adolescents. She has led several national workforce development and training initiatives, including the National Training Initiative in Injury and Violence Prevention, which resulted in creation of core competencies for the field and was the genesis of the PREVENT Institute, a national training program for practitioners.