University of Mississippi Medical Center |
A Proposal to Establish the Mississippi Violence Injury Prevention (VIP) Program
Research Topics
Dr. Matthew Morris is a Co-Investigator for the University of Mississippi Medical Center project A Proposal to Establish the Mississippi Violence Injury Prevention (VIP) Program and is a member of the Data & Methods Workgroup.
As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Morris’ program of research is broadly focused on early psychosocial and neuroendocrine risk factors for the development of trauma-related psychopathology and persistent pain. Identifying risk markers linking trauma exposure to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute/chronic pain, and understanding pathways to resilience, are critical for improved risk screening and the development of early intervention programs. He has expertise in the assessment of individual and environmental stressors, depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms, administration of quantitative sensory testing (QST) protocols, and multilevel models for longitudinal and QST data analysis. This project builds on his prior work as PI for a longitudinal study, entitled ‘Models of Risk for PTSD’ (K01MH101403), which examined risk for PTSD over a 6-month follow-up period in young adult women with recent exposure to interpersonal trauma. In addition, this project builds on his work as (1) PI of a study evaluating biobehavioral and social factors that contribute to the transition from acute to chronic pain in non-Hispanic Black and White traumatic injury survivors (R01MD016838), and (2) Co-PI of a study testing two pathways linking cumulative stress exposure (including perceived racial discrimination) to daily pain outcomes: prolonged alterations in stress response systems (i.e., hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal hypo-activity) and experimental pain responses (assessed via QST) (U54 MD007586).
Affiliated Projects