Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice

Megan Ranney first joined Brown University as an intern in Emergency Medicine in 2004, and then completed a residency and chief residency in Emergency Medicine, as well as a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research and a Master of Public Health. She affiliated with the PSTC in 2020.

Megan’s research focuses on the overlap between violence, technology, and mental health, with a focus on the lived experiences of adolescents. She is particularly interested in the ways that technology use shapes both exposure to and resilience in the face of youth violence. In this pandemic moment, she is also increasingly studying the use of technology to identify and mitigate effects of COVID on social, emotional, and physical health. As the founding director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, she is also interested in helping to grow collaborations on technology-related research across campus and with our academic medical center.

Selected Publications

Ranney ML, Pittman SK, Dunsiger S, Guthrie KM, Spirito A, Boyer EW, Cunningham RM. Emergency department text messaging for adolescent violence and depression prevention: A pilot randomized controlled trial. Psychol Serv. 2018 Nov;15(4):419-428.

Ranney ML, Choo EK, Cunningham RM, Spirito A, Thorsen M, Mello MJ, Morrow K. Acceptability, language, and structure of text message-based behavioral interventions for high-risk adolescent females: a qualitative study. J Adolesc Health. 2014 Jul;55(1):33-40.

Ranney ML, Choo EK, Wang Y, Baum A, Clark MA, Mello MJ. Emergency Department Patient Preferences for Technology-Based Behavioral Interventions. Ann Emerg Med, 2012 Aug;60(2):218-227.e48.

Riese A, Gao H, Baird J, Mello MJ, Ranney ML. Including Youth Violence Screening on Previsit Questionnaires and the Effect on Other Health Risk Behavior Discussions. Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2017 Mar;56(3):284-287.

Scholarly Interests

Violence, Injury prevention, Digital technologies, Adolescent health