Jennifer Boggs, PhD, MSW
Investigator
Jennifer Boggs, PhD, MSW, is an Investigator at the Institute for Health Research. As a mental health services researcher, Dr. Boggs uses training in qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate both the effectiveness of mental health interventions and implementation factors that determine feasibility within health systems. Dr. Boggs' ongoing work is focused in two main areas: 1) understanding implementation approaches that promote effective adoption of safety planning and lethal means safety interventions within health system settings for suicide prevention and 2) developing, testing, and scaling digital health interventions. She has several publications on digital health programs for persons with chronic medical conditions and mental health disorders. She has also completed work and published on the impact of lethal means counseling and risky medication prescribing patterns for benzodiazepines on suicide outcomes. Dr. Boggs works extensively with collaborators from the NIMH funded Mental Health Research Network.
Dr. Boggs received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Indiana University with a minor in business, a Master of Social Work from the University of Denver with concentrations in animal assisted approaches and marriage and family therapy, and a Doctorate in Health Services Research from the University of Colorado.
Selected Research:
- A Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation Trial of Firearm Safety Promotion in Pediatric Primary Care to Decrease Firearm Injury and Mortality in Youth
- Funder: National Institute for Mental Health
- Study End Date: 06/30/2024
- Developing a Medication Safety Planning Intervention for Healthcare Settings to Prevent Intentional Poisoning
- Funder: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
- Study End Date: 09/30/2024
- Developing Tools to Evaluate the Impact of Safety Planning and Lethal Means Assessment on Suicide Outcomes.
- Funder: National Institute for Mental Health
- Study End Date: 05/30/2022
- Scientist in Residence
- Funder: Kaiser Permanente Community Health
- Study End Date: 12/31/2025
In collaboration with partners at Northwestern University (PI: Beidas), we implemented a pragmatic cluster randomized trial of medical offices to test implementation strategies and clinical effectiveness of the Firearm Safety Check intervention in pediatric primary care. All pediatricians received training and an EHR "nudge" during well-visits to provide firearm safety education. Intervention clinics received practice facilitation and we will evaluate whether facilitation increases adoption and effectiveness of Firearm Safety Check.
This 2-year development grant will result in the design of a medication safety plan that is both patient-centered and provider-accepted. Qualitative interviews with patients and providers will inform development of the medication safety plan and implementation strategies that will be used in a small-scale pilot. Intervention development and implementation, as well as evaluation methods developed through this planning work will inform a larger scale study to evaluate the impact of mediation safety planning on suicidal behavior.
The goal of this administrative supplement is developing natural language processing tools to identify safety planning and lethal means assessment in patients with suicide risk within health systems who implemented the Zero Suicide model. The first publication of our findings can be found here: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.20230211
In her role as “Scientist in Residence” with the KP Center for Gun Violence, in partnership with the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (HAVI), Dr. Boggs leads multiple initiatives focused on the prevention of firearm injuries and improvement in care delivery for those impacted by firearm injury. In 2024 the surgeon general declared gun violence a public health crisis. This work spans across multiple types of firearm injury, including intentional self-harm by firearm (i.e., suicide), accidental injuries (e.g., unwanted access by a child), and homicides (e.g., interpersonal violence and school shootings). Primary goals are to create more infrastructure for research, help spread evidence-based practices for firearm injury prevention across all KP, identify gaps in care, and recommend programmatic improvements. Initiatives will include the development of patient and provider advisory panels, the spread of an evidence-based secure firearm storage intervention called S.A.F.E. Firearm and completing a needs assessment for patients who experience bullet wounds within KP. As a product of this work, recommendations for firearm injury quality metrics will be made.