Rebeccah Sokol

Associate Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work and Associate Professor of Health Behavior and Health Equity, School of Public Health

Rebeccah Sokol, PhD, is a behavioral scientist who studies youth trauma exposure. Her overarching research agenda seeks to ease the burden of adversity experienced in childhood and adolescence, with a central focus on reducing youth violence exposure and involvement. Sokol uses a developmental lens, public health framework, quasi-experimental methods and data science techniques to inform strategies that prevent youth trauma. A common thread of Sokol’s research involves describing risk and identifying etiological factors for youth firearm violence exposure in different populations, with the ultimate goal of improving firearm injury and violence prevention interventions and policies.

Curriculum Vitae

Contact Information

Education

  • 2019 PhD Health Behavior
    University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
  • 2016 MSPH Health Behavior
    University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
  • 2014 BS Biomedical Science
    Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI

News

Activities

Publications

Haasz, M., Myers, M., Carter, P., Gastineau, K., & Sokol, R. (in press). Caregivers asking about firearms in homes their children visit. Pediatrics.
Furnari, M. B., Hsieh, H. F., Goldstick, J. E., Sokol, R., Lee, D. B., Heinze, J. E., & Zimmerman, M. A. (2025). The public health approach for firearm violence and injury prevention. In N. D. Thomson (Ed.), Handbook of Gun Violence (13-28). Academic Press.
Sokol, R., Medina Del Toro, V., Degli Esposti, M., Kernsmith, P., Victor, B., Hsieh, H-F., & Heinze, J. (2025). School-wide attendance rates and firearm-involved expulsions in Michigan K-12 public schools, 2018–2022. Journal of School Violence.
Sokol, R., Glick, M., Hall, S., Nose, S. Y., Johnson, E., & Poma, J. (2025). Anticipated effects of an unconditional cash transfer program: A qualitative community-engaged planning study. Preventive Medicine Reports, 51.
Sokol, R., Mueller-Williams, A., Porter, K., Leys, M., Apala Flaherty, A., & Wexler, L. (2025). Developing and testing the predictive validity of household firearm storage measures: Insights from rural Alaska. Injury Prevention, 31(2), 169-173.
Hastings, K., Zimmerman, M., Carter, P., & Sokol, R. (2025). Parental firearm storage and their teens’ perceived firearm access in the United States. JAMA Network Open, 8(6).
Sokol, R., Walton, M., Lee, D., Seewald, L., Medina Del Toro, V., Farooqui, M., Sallabank, G., Zimmerman, M., Edberg, M., Wang, Y., Zakrison, T., Tung, E., Hillegass, W., Zhang, L., Kutcher, M., Blachman-Dember, D., & Carter, P. (2024). Advancing science to prevent firearm violence in communities: A process for harmonizing studies to develop research infrastructure. Prevention Science, 25, 1122-1132.
Seewald, L. A., Hartman, H. A., Stallworth, P., Vargas, E. W., Ehrlich, P. F., Dykstra, H., Foster, C. E., Sokol, R., Wiebe, D. J., & Carter, P. M. (2024). Childhood firearm deaths during intimate partner violence incidents: 2004-2020. Pediatrics, 154(Suppl 3), e2024067043Q.
Hartman, H., Seewald, L., Weigend Vargas, E., Portugal, J., Ehrlich, P., Mintz, S., Ewell Foster, C., Sokol, R., Weibe, D., & Carter, P. (2024). Contextual factors influencing firearm deaths occurring among children. Pediatrics, 154(Suppl 3).
Pelletier, K., Pizarro, J., Royan, R., Sokol, R., Cunningham, R., Zimmerman, M., & Carter, P. (2024). Association between community violence exposure and teen parental firearm ownership: Data from a nationally representative study. Injury Epidemiology.

Honors and Awards

Year Description
2025 Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science - nominee, American Association for the Advancement of Science
2024 Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science - nominee, American Association for the Advancement of Science
2023 Public Engagement Faculty Fellow, Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Michigan
2023 PI Alison Miller
School of Public Health, University of Michigan
Redesigning the community-based Ypsilanti Health Center Pediatric Clinic
2023 Innovation in Research and Teaching Award, School of Social Work, University of Michigan
2022-2025 PI Megan Hicks
ACHIEVE GreatER Development Care
Screening for social risks and health: The role of stress reduction
2021-2022 PI Rebeccah Sokol
Office of the Provost, Wayne State University
Social determinants of health in Detroit schools
2021 PI Nirupama Kannikeswaran
The Children's Foundation
The impact of SARS CoV-2 pandemic on traumatic injuries in a pediatric emergency department
2019-2021 PI Anna Grummon
First 5 California
Promoting health beverage intake in low-income and racial/ethnic minority young children using children's storybooks
2019-2021 PI Alison Miller
University of Michigan Momentum Center
Social determinant screening in pediatric primary care
2019-2020 PI Rebeccah Sokol
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health
Can social support screening improve existing childhood trauma screeners?
2019 Best Paper in Child Health Policy, Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center

Presentations

Year Description
2025 Preventing Firearm Injuries and Deaths among Young Children [webinar], Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Webinar. University Park, PA
2025 Stearns, D., Thulin, E., Lee, D., Ehrlich, P., Arce, V., Haasz, M., & Sokol, R. (2025). Examining firearm storage beliefs during a crisis among rural and non-rural parent firearm owners. American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition, Denver, CO, United States.
2025 Haasz, M., Myers, M., Carter, P., Sokol, R. (2025). Caregivers’ asking about firearms in homes that youth visit: A nationally representative cross-sectional survey. Oral Presentation. Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States.
2024 Sokol, R. (2024). Improving student attendance to prevent school violence: Evaluating a school- based primary prevention intervention. National Research Conference for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms, Seattle, WA, United States.
2024 Hastings, K., Zimmerman, M., Cater, P., & Sokol, R. (2024). Associations between parental firearm storage practices and teen-reported access in the United States. National Research Conference for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms, Seattle, WA, United States.

Courses

Past Courses

Title Instructor Term Course Section Meeting Start Meeting End
Program Evaluation and Applied Research Sokol, Rebeccah Winter 2026 004 02:00 pm 05:00 pm View Course
Behavioral, Psychosocial and Ecological Aspects of Health, Mental Health and Disease Sokol, Rebeccah Winter 2025 006 06:00 pm 09:00 pm View Course
Contexts of Life-course Development: Childhood, Adolescence, and Early Adulthood Sokol, Rebeccah Winter 2024 002 02:00 pm 05:00 pm View Course
Behavioral, Psychosocial and Ecological Aspects of Health, Mental Health and Disease Sokol, Rebeccah Winter 2023 801 06:00 pm 08:00 pm View Course