Jeff Milroy

Bio & Education

PERSONAL INTRODUCTION

First and foremost, I am a father of 4 wonderful children and a professional colleague to other faculty in the department of Public Health Education at UNC Greensboro. I am passionate about learning as well as sharing that passion with my students. Professionally speaking, I am a public health scientist who has spent the past 14 years focusing on the conceptualization, development, and evaluation of theory-based behavioral interventions for adolescents. Much of my time is devoted to translating evidence into effective prevention efforts to alter psycho-social factors among youth and young adults. My specific areas of expertise include the promotion of sport-related concussion reporting, alcohol, and other drug prevention, the intersection of alcohol and sexual behaviors of adolescents, coach communication for the promotion of health, physical activity promotion, and the development of evidence-based behavioral interventions. My work utilizes an ecological perspective that considers how individual, relational, community, and structural factors and the intersection of multiple identities impact important health outcomes. I have served as a Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on many externally funded federal and foundational projects. Previously I was the PI on a 3-year National Collegiate Athletic Association and US Department of Defense-funded study investigating concussion reporting among collegiate student-athletes as well as a Co-Investigator on a 5-year NIAAA-funded RO1 investigating the intersection of alcohol and sexual behaviors of college students. I am currently in my 5th year as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Education and my 7th year as Associate Director of the Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I love how my extramural research allows me to mentor PHE students and share with them experiences in the field.  Jeff’s love for working with athletes stems from growing up as a hockey player growing up in Canada and from his time as a Division III student-athlete at SUNY Potsdam.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Dr. Milroy is the an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Education and Associate Director of the Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Many of his current projects include the development of behavioral interventions that target specific risk and protective factors associated with distal and long-term outcomes of adolescents. Specifically, he and his team at the Institute to Promote Athlete Health and Wellness are currently developing and disseminating web-based interventions aimed at promoting concussion reporting, reducing negative consequences related to alcohol and other drug use, and promoting healthy decision making among collegiate student-athletes. Dr. Milroy has also led the development of web-based and face-to-face programming for collegiate coaches. One such program, Coaches Assist for Empathic Listening, is now being delivered by the NCAA SSI and is a program designed to provide extensive training to athletic coaches to help them develop skills necessary to establish and sustain a culture of caring within athletics. He continues to improve coaches training’s by integrating evidence based prevention strategies into programming, utilizing state of the art technology, and incorporating methods taken from the fields of health coaching and motivational interviewing.

• Dr.PH in Public Health, Department of Public Health Education, University of North Carolina Greensboro
• MPH in Community Health Education, Department of Public Health Education, University of North Carolina Greensboro
• BS in Community Health, Department of Community Health, Minor: English/Communication, State University of Potsdam

Research

• Promotion of concussion reporting
• Alcohol and other drug prevention
• The intersection of alcohol and sexual behaviors of adolescents
• Coach communication for the promotion of health
• Physical activity promotion development of evidence-based behavioral interventions

CURRENT PROJECTS

• The Intersection of Alcohol and Sex: Engineering an online STI Prevention Program. This is a NIAAA funded R01 study and partnership with Penn State University.
• Examining Collegiate Recreation and Sports Experiences of College Students with Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities (IDD) and Recreation and Sports Staff Who Serve College Students with IDD. This a study funded by Special Olympics.
• APC (Athletes, Parents, Coaches): A collaborative approach to reduce time between concussion symptom onset and treatment. This is a NINR funded project to develop and web-based intervention for youth athletes, parents, and coaches.
• McCrae J Williams Foundation: This is a project aimed at collecting athlete and non athlete data related medical amnesty policies on college campuses.
• US Center for Safe Sport: In this project IPAHW is collaborating with the US Center for Safe Sport, which is s an independent nonprofit committed to building a sport community where participants can work and learn together free of emotional, physical and sexual abuse and misconduct.
• US Anti-Doping Agency: This is a project dedicated to collecting data from US Olympic and Paralympic elite athletes. The goal of the data collection is to obtain intrapersonal (e.g., attitudes) and behavioral (e.g., prevalence) doping data from elite athletes.
• College Athletes Pain, Policy, Sport Specialization study; The College Athlete Risky Drinking Study: Both of these studies are part of annual data collection conducted through myPlaybook (web-based intervention for NCAA student-athletes) with NCAA member institutions.
• InSideOut Initiative Evaluation: This is an NFL Foundation funded evaluation to to evaluate the InSideOut Initiative which is an initiative devoted to reclaiming the educational purpose of sport through a systems level approach.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Milroy, J. J., Rulison, K. L.,Sanders, L., Mendenhall, B., Wyrick, D. L. (2020). Using the Integrated Behavioral Model to Determine Sport-Related Concussion Reporting Among Collegiate Student-Athletes. Journal of Adolescent Health. 66(6), 705-712.

Milroy, J. J., Sanders, L., Mendenhall, B., Dudley, W., Wyrick, D. L. (2020). A latent profile analysis to categorize and describe athletes based on factors related to concussion disclosure. Journal of Athletic Training.

Milroy, J. J., Wyrick, D. L., Sanders, L., Refisteck E. J., Beamon, E. (2019). Student-athlete concussion disclosure and coach communication within collegiate athletics. Journal of Concussion, DOI: 10.1177/2059700219894104

Milroy, J. J., Hebard, S., Kroshus, E., Wyrick, D. L. (2018). Sport-related Concussion Reporting and Coach-Athlete Attachment Among Collegiate Student-Athletes. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology. DOI: 10.1123/jcsp.2017-0029

Wyrick, D. L., Tanner, A. E., Milroy, J. J., Guastaferro, K. M., Bhandari, S., Kugler, K. C., Thorpe, S., Ware, S., Miller, A. M., & Collins, L. M. (2020) itMatters: Optimization of an online intervention to prevent sexually transmitted infections in college students. Journal of American College Health.

Kroshus, E., Cameron, Coatsworth, D., D’Lauro, C., Kim, Lee, Register-Mihalik, J., Milroy, J. J., Roetert, P., Schmidt, J., Silverman, R. (2020). Actionable approaches to improving concussion care seeking: Consensus from the NCAA-Department of Defense Mind Matters Research and Education. British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Sanders, L., Dudley, W., Milroy, J. J., Wyrick, D. L. (2019). Profiling of Student-Athletes using Protective Behavioral Strategies and Alcohol Use Based on Cluster Analysis Assignment. Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 20(2), http://dx.doi.org/10.1921/swssr.v20i2.1246