Jeff Milroy

Areas of Expertise

Athlete well-being, college student health, mental health, concussion, care seeking, evaluation, innovation and entrepreneurship, community engagement, culture of care within university life or workplaces, health promotion

Bio & Education

PERSONAL INTRODUCTION

First and foremost, I am a father of 4 wonderful children and partner to a wonderful individual who also works at UNCG. We’re both very found of UNCG and passionate about supporting the mission of the university, the students who attend, and our North Carolina community. I am passionate about learning as well as sharing this passion with my students. Professionally speaking, I am a public health scientist who has spent the past 21 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 well-being among all levels of athletes including concussion reporting and care seeking, 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. My research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Collegiate Athletic Association, US Department of Defense, National Football League Foundation, United States Anti-Doping Agency, World Anti-Doping Agency, as well as several others. I am currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Education and Director of the Center for Athlete Well-Being. The Center for Athlete Well-Being is a research and service center at the forefront of excellence in health promotion for athletes of all ages and levels of competition. We work collaboratively with a variety of organizations to provide educational resources and support through evidence-based programming, training, and research/evaluation. I love how my extramural research allows me to mentor PHE students and provide them with opportunities in the field. My love for working with athletes and athletic organizations stems from being a hockey player growing up in Canada and playing NCAA Division III hockey at SUNY Potsdam.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Dr. Milroy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Education and Director of the Center for Athlete Well-Being at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Many of his current projects include the development of behavioral interventions that target risk and protective factors associated with distal and long-term outcomes of adolescents. Dr. Milroy and his research teams have conducted research involving college students, athletes, college fraternity members, Olympic and Paralympic athletes, individuals with intellectual and development disabilities, and community organizations. Specifically, he and his team at the Center for Athlete Well-Being have completed projects related to alcohol and substance use prevention, sexual violence prevention, anti-doping education/prevention, mental health, concussion care seeking, coach education, and other critical topics within sport. Dr. Milroy actively recruits PhD students who have an strong interest in the lives of athletes and the environments/cultures they exist.

• 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

Office Hours and Location

Office Hours

9 AM – 5 PM (By appointment)

Location

420 L Coleman Building

Courses taught

• HEA 366 Community Health Interventions
• HEA 625 & 726 Evaluation Methods
• HEA 631 Introduction to Athlete Well-Being
• HEA 751 Foundations of Research for Public Health Education

Research

• Development and evaluation of evidence-based behavioral interventions
• Athlete specific research
• Alcohol and other drug prevention
• Promotion of concussion reporting
• The intersection of alcohol and sexual behaviors of adolescents
• Empathic communication for the promotion of health
• Physical activity promotion

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

Oakes, L. R., Milroy, J. J., George, S., & Smith, A. (2024). Examining experiences of campus recreation and sports staff who serve college students with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD): A Special Olympics Unified Sports® study. Recreational Sports Journal, 56(3), 281-299. https://doi.org/10.18666/TRJ-2022-V56-I3-11184 

Milroy, J.J., Kearns Davoren, A., Hebard, S., Grist, P., Kelly, S.E., Wyrick, D.L. (2024). National initiative pivots amidst a global pandemic: Lessons learned from the InSideOut Initiative. Journal of Health Promotion Practice. doi: 10.1177/15248399241285058. 

Davoren, A.K., Rulison, K., Milroy, J.J., Grist, P., Fedoruk, M., Lewis, L., & Wyrick, D.L. (2024). Doping Prevalence among U.S. Elite Athletes Subject to Drug Testing under the World Anti-Doping Code. Sports Medicine. 20;10(1):57. doi: 10.1186/s40798-024-00721-9. 

Rulison, K.L., Milroy, J.J., Wyrick, D.L. (2022). A randomized iterative approach to optimizing an online substance use intervention for collegiate athletes. Translational Behavioral Medicine, Volume 12, Issue 1, January 2022, ibab119, https://doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibab119 

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