Ginger Yang, PhD

July 2020 – Ginger Yang

Dr. Yang’s primary research interest is injury prevention with an emphasis on injuries to children and adolescents. Much of her current research focuses on the trajectory of recovery from sports-related mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI) among children as well as parental engagement in teen driving safety.

Describe your research and why you are passionate about this topic?

My primary research interest is injury prevention with an emphasis on injuries to children and adolescents. The majority of my research focuses on sports-related injuries including mild traumatic brain injury (commonly known as concussion). Another line of my research focuses on parental engagement in teen driving safety. These topics address some of the leading causes of death and disability among children in the US and globally.

My research interests stemmed from my own injury experiences as a competitive high school and collegiate volleyball player. I was born and raised in Suzhou, China, which is about one hour from Shanghai. I started playing volleyball at age 12 when I was in 7th grade. I played volleyball as I was taller than most other girls my age. I was very fortunate to make the school team because only 14 to 16 girls in the entire middle/high school (with over 3,000 students) made the school volleyball team each year. When I was a senior in high school, I almost became a professional volleyball player, however, I was told that I was 3 cm too short. It was a big disappointment… but my experiences with injury made me want to pursue a career that would enable me to help others avoid such experiences. I am happy to see that my work has not only advanced scientific knowledge but has also significantly impacted children and their families by preventing and reducing the burden of injuries.

What should people know about your research?

A significant arm of my early research focuses on the epidemiology of sports-related injuries among youth, high school, and collegiate athletes, including quantifying the incidence, outcomes, and patterns of sports-related injuries. I started my first independent investigation on sports injury through my dissertation work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After joining the faculty at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, I directed a 5-year, prospective, multi-site, interdisciplinary collaborative research project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that examined sports injuries and their psychological outcomes among Division I intercollegiate athletes at three Big Ten Conference universities. The findings of our work not only contributed to the scientific knowledge base, but influenced stakeholders at the University of Iowa to hire a full-time sports psychologist to aid athletes in their psychological recovery from injury. From 2010 to 2015, I was appointed to serve on the Major League Baseball (MLB) Injury Research Committee, which provides guidance in injury research among professional baseball players.

Since joining Nationwide Children’s Hospital and OSU in 2014, my work, primarily funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and CDC, has focused on the trajectory of recovery from sports-related concussion among children. These include studies that monitor concussed youths’ physical and cognitive rest post-injury and how rest contributes to concussion recovery, identify salivatory biomarkers that predict concussed children at risk for persistent symptoms, assess driving performance following mild TBI among teen drivers, and evaluate the effects of state traumatic brain injury laws on rates and patterns of pediatric concussions and concussion-related healthcare utilization. I am currently also directing a NIH-funded R01 study that aims to assess the effectiveness of an evidence-based, parent-focused teen driving safety program on the driving practices of teen drivers who have received a traffic violation.

As I forge ahead with my research, I am committed to engaging in multi-disciplinary, rigorous research with existing and new collaborators. I look forward to building and expanding on my lines of research as well as using advanced research methods and effective strategies to protect children from injuries while they play and travel.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I enjoy working in my yard and cooking homemade Chinese food. I also enjoy talking to my parents and parents-in-law who are in their 80s and 90s and live in China. Last but not least, I enjoy doing Taichi, a low-impact, slow-motion exercise often described as "meditation in motion," which keeps me physically fit and mentally alert.