Laura Prater, PhD

Dr. Prater holds a doctorate in public health from the Ohio State University, with a focus in health services research, pragmatic intervention development and policy evaluation. Her work focuses on understanding the circumstances around firearm suicide among vulnerable populations and developing health systems interventions for suicide prevention through firearm safety. Using a public health lens, she works on tailoring interventions to meet the unique needs of vulnerable populations (e.g. dementia, terminal illness) at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. She is currently funded by the National Institutes on Aging and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to produce clinical decision-making tools to help persons with early dementia, their care partners, and primary clinicians, to make safer plans for firearm storage.

Other Affiliations

Associate Director, Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program, Harborview Injury & Policy Research Program, University of Washington School of Medicine

Recent Publications

Characterizing Female Firearm Suicide Circumstances: A Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Approach.
(2023 Mar 16)
Am J Prev Med
Goldstein EV, Mooney SJ, Takagi-Stewart J, Agnew BF, Morgan ER, Haviland MJ, Zhou W, Prater LC

Using a Community-Informed Translational Model to Prioritize Translational Benefits in Youth Concussion Return-to-Learn Programs.
(2023 Jan 26)
Health Promot Pract
Takagi-Stewart J, Avery A, Deshpande SJ, Andersen S, Combs T, Vavilala MS, Prater L

Older adults and planning for firearm safety: A qualitative study of healthcare providers.
(2022 Dec 22)
J Am Geriatr Soc
Prater LC, Simonetti JA, Knoepke CE, Polzer ER, Nearing KA, Lee T, Betz ME

Suicide, Firearms, and Terminal Illness: A Latent Class Analysis Using Data From the National Violent Death Reporting System.
(2022 Dec 7)
Psychiatr Serv
Prater LC, Ellyson AM, Shawon RA, Lyons VH, Cheung A, Rivara F, Rowhani-Rahbar A, Zatzick D

Cars, Guns, Aging, and "Giving Up the Keys".
(2022 Nov 16)
Gerontologist
Betz ME, Polzer ER, Knoepke CE, Prater LC, Simonetti JA, Lee TM, Meador LE, Nearing KA

Show complete publication list »
Edit Profile