Will

Kelli England Will, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Clinical Psychologist
Eastern Virginia Medical School

Division of Community Health & Research

E. V. Williams Hall
855 W. Brambleton Ave.
Norfolk, VA 23510-1001
Phone: (757) 668-6449 ▪ Fax: (757) 668-6475
E-mail: willke@evms.edu

Background | Research Interests | Current Projects | Honors and Awards | Selected Publications

Background

B.S. in Psychology (1995, magna cum laude) and M.S. in Experimental/General Psychology (1998) from Old Dominion University; PhD (2002) in Clinical Psychology (clinical health emphasis) from Virginia Tech; APA-accredited Internship (2001-2002) in Clinical Psychology (Public Health Track) at the Virginia Beach City Public Schools; Residency (2003-2006) in Clinical Psychology at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Research Interests

Dr. Will’s areas of expertise are injury control, health behavior theory, and risk communication. She has training and experience designing, implementing, and evaluating safety and health-promotion programs in large-scale systems. Much of her research is preschool and school based and targets youth injury prevention. Recent studies have focused on child seat use, alcohol-related risk and DUI prevention, poison prevention, behavior management, adult traffic safety, and the use of fear-appeals in health promotion campaigns. Her focus in each of these projects has been on using theory to guide the motivation of real-world health behavior-change. Thus, a key interest is risk communication (e.g., designing safety messages for maximum risk-reduction benefit) as it relates to child injury prevention and motor vehicle safety.

Current Projects

Dr. Will’s program of research focuses on designing large-scale behavior-change programs that benefit the health and safety of children, teens, and young adults. As Principal Investigator, she has recently received 11 grants from federal, state, and private agencies for this field research: (a) a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant to develop a video-intervention and study the application of fear-appeal messaging to child passenger safety campaigns (see the video at www.chkd.org/carseats); (b) two consecutive National Institutes of Health Pediatric Loan Repayment Grants to study pediatric injury prevention; (c) three consecutive US Department of Transportation (USDOT) & Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (VaDMV) Federal 402 grants to implement and evaluate youth DUI prevention programs in schools and courtrooms; (d) a USDOT & VaDMV Federal 402 grant to develop and pilot a school-based safety belt program for 8-12 year-olds (i.e., “tweens”); (e) a US Department of the Navy grant to develop and evaluate an alcohol harm-reduction training program for young sailors; (f) a USDOT & VaDMV Federal 402 grant to conduct dissemination research on disseminating a booster seat intervention throughout the Commonwealth; (g) an Obici Healthcare Foundation to disseminate a booster seat intervention in Suffolk and Isle of Wight through partnerships with physician offices and public health departments; and (h) a Virginia Department of Health grant to implement a poison prevention campaign in child care centers. Other recent programs have targeted improved traffic safety awareness, playground safety, and proper use of child safety seats and booster seats.

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Honors and Awards

· Fellow in Unintentional Injury Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention & Society for Public Health Education (2000-2001)

· Outstanding Graduate Student for the College of Arts and Sciences, Virginia Tech (2001)

· Grant funding for work in child injury prevention from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health (Pediatric Loan Repayment Program), Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles / US Department of Transportation, US Department of the Navy, Obici Healthcare Foundation, Virginia Department of Health, and the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies

· Nationally Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician

· National Cancer Institute’s Advanced Training Institute in Health Behavior Theory (only 25 people accepted/funded per year), (June 2005)

· John T. Hanna Award for Excellence in Traffic Safety Education and Prevention, Drive Safe Coalition of Hampton Roads (2005)

· Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers (2004-2005 and 2005-2006)

Selected Publications

1. Will, K. E., & Sabo, C. S. (in press). Targeting Underage Drinking and Driving in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts: The Reinforcing Alcohol Prevention (RAP) Program. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, spring 2008.

2. Will, K. E., Sabo, C. S., & Porter, B. E. (under review). Evaluation of The Boost ‘em in the Back Seat Program: Using fear and efficacy to bring new strength to an old message. Submitted to the Accident Analysis and Prevention, Winter 2007.

3. Will, K. E., Lorek, E., Sabo, C. S., & Kidd, D. (under review). Does perceived injury risk compare to actual injury risk? Development and examination of the Worry Assessment and Risk Estimation (WARE) Scale. Submitted to Journal of Safety Research, Winter 2007.

4. Will, K. E. (2007). Scared straight or running scared? Proper use of fear tactics in public health interventions. Home Safety Council’s The Bottom Line Column. Available: http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_blmay07_w001.aspx

5. Will, K. E., & Shier, C. L. (2006). Large-scale prevention of alcohol-impaired driving: A review. In A. Columbus’ (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 40 (pp. 217-241). Hauppauge NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

6. Will, K. E. (2005). Child passenger safety and the Immunity Fallacy: Why what we are doing is not working. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 37, 947-955.

7. Will, K. E., Porter, B. E., Geller, E. S., & DePasquale, J. P. (2005). What is television teaching its viewers? A cross-sectional analysis of risky behaviors on primetime television. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35 (1), 198-222.

8. Will, K. E., & Geller, E. S. (2004). Increasing the safety of children’s vehicle travel: From effective risk communication to behavior change. Journal of Safety Research, 35, 263-274.

9. Will, K. E. (2004). Global disparities in child passenger safety practices and associated perceptions of risk. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology. Available: http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/IAAPdiv13/ICTTP2004papers2/Children%20&%20Adolescents/Will.pdf

10. England, K. J. (2001). Can traditional clinical training make room for community psychology? The Community Psychologist, 34 (2), 8.

11. England, K. J., Olson, T., & Geller, E. S. (2000). Behavioral observations find unsafe use of child safety seats. Behavior Analyst Digest, 12, 11-12.

12. Porter, B. E., & England, K. J. (2000). Predicting red-light running behavior: A traffic safety study in three urban settings. Journal of Safety Research, 31, 1-8.

13. England, K. (1999). An everyday use of information processing theory: Sign and label design. In H. K. Chandler and J. W. Finney (Eds.), Exploring Introductory Psychology: A reader and workbook (pp. 405, 415-416). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

14. Janda, L. H., England, K. J., Lovejoy, D., & Drury, K. (1998). Attitudes toward psychology relative to other disciplines. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 29(2), 140-143.