Allison E. Curry
· Professor of Pediatrics (Emergency Medicine) at the Children's Hospital of PhiladelphiaVerifiedUniversity of Pennsylvania · Rehabilitation Medicine
Active 1920–2026
About
Allison E. Curry, PhD, MPH, is a Professor of Pediatrics (Emergency Medicine) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She serves as the Director of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention within the Department of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Additionally, she is a Senior Scientist at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Health Initiatives, and a Center Investigator at the Penn Injury Science Center, all affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Her research focuses on injury prevention, with particular emphasis on driving safety among adolescents and older adults, as well as the health conditions affecting driving safety. She has contributed to understanding the epidemiology of motor vehicle crashes, disparities in crash outcomes, and the effects of medication and health conditions on driving risk. Dr. Curry's work involves applying epidemiological methods to improve safety and health outcomes related to transportation and injury prevention.
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Research topics
- Pediatrics
- Medicine
- Environmental health
- Medical emergency
Selected publications
Injury Epidemiology · 2026-02-06
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND: Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are a leading cause of injury among adults aged 65 years and older ("older adults"). As the number of older drivers grows, it is increasingly important to understand clinical factors associated with an increased risk of MVC. A major barrier, however, is the lack of data. To address this, we linked two large-scale administrative databases, the New Jersey Safety and Health Outcomes (NJ-SHO) Data Warehouse, which contains information on all police-reported crashes in New Jersey from 2004 to 2019, and Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) insurance claims, which contains health care encounters and prescription drug dispensings among older adults in the United States over the same period. This paper explains the linkage process, describes selected work leveraging these data to study MVCs in older drivers, and highlights features and strengths of this linkage for future research. METHODS: The NJ-SHO-Medicare linkage was performed using categories of name (first and last), sex, age (birth and death date), and residence (state and ZIP code). Matches were ranked by quality and overall confidence. RESULTS: After comparing different match strategies, we accepted a match when (1) the name match quality was High or Medium and the age match was High or (2) the name, sex, and residence match categories were all High. Of the 2,722,773 individuals successfully linked, we accepted 2,661,782 matches (97.76% of individuals linked and 91.59% of those submitted for linkage). All accepted matches were Strong or Fair. Among accepted matches who enrolled in Medicare FFS in 2019, 342,422 (28.57%) were 65-69 years old, 619,437 (51.69%) were female, and 955,309 (79.72%) were non-Hispanic White. Only 29,561 (2.47%) experienced an MVC and 25,478 (2.13%) received a citation. The most prevalent clinical conditions ever diagnosed were cataracts (669,044; 55.83%); chronic pain, fatigue, and fibromyalgia (367,165; 30.64%); and glaucoma (287,420; 23.98%). CONCLUSIONS: With extensive temporal and population coverage, the NJ-SHO-Medicare linkage supports studying the relationships between clinical exposures (e.g., medications ), driving events (e.g., crashes, citations) and medical care trajectories, which can help advance the driving safety of older adults and inform future efforts to integrate administrative data.
Figshare · 2026-02-06
otherOpen accessAbstract Background Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are a leading cause of injury among adults aged 65 years and older (“older adults”). As the number of older drivers grows, it is increasingly important to understand clinical factors associated with an increased risk of MVC. A major barrier, however, is the lack of data. To address this, we linked two large-scale administrative databases, the New Jersey Safety and Health Outcomes (NJ-SHO) Data Warehouse, which contains information on all police-reported crashes in New Jersey from 2004 to 2019, and Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) insurance claims, which contains health care encounters and prescription drug dispensings among older adults in the United States over the same period. This paper explains the linkage process, describes selected work leveraging these data to study MVCs in older drivers, and highlights features and strengths of this linkage for future research. Methods The NJ-SHO–Medicare linkage was performed using categories of name (first and last), sex, age (birth and death date), and residence (state and ZIP code). Matches were ranked by quality and overall confidence. Results After comparing different match strategies, we accepted a match when (1) the name match quality was High or Medium and the age match was High or (2) the name, sex, and residence match categories were all High. Of the 2,722,773 individuals successfully linked, we accepted 2,661,782 matches (97.76% of individuals linked and 91.59% of those submitted for linkage). All accepted matches were Strong or Fair. Among accepted matches who enrolled in Medicare FFS in 2019, 342,422 (28.57%) were 65–69 years old, 619,437 (51.69%) were female, and 955,309 (79.72%) were non-Hispanic White. Only 29,561 (2.47%) experienced an MVC and 25,478 (2.13%) received a citation. The most prevalent clinical conditions ever diagnosed were cataracts (669,044; 55.83%); chronic pain, fatigue, and fibromyalgia (367,165; 30.64%); and glaucoma (287,420; 23.98%). Conclusions With extensive temporal and population coverage, the NJ-SHO–Medicare linkage supports studying the relationships between clinical exposures (e.g., medications ), driving events (e.g., crashes, citations) and medical care trajectories, which can help advance the driving safety of older adults and inform future efforts to integrate administrative data.
Figshare · 2026-02-06
otherOpen accessAbstract Background Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are a leading cause of injury among adults aged 65 years and older (“older adults”). As the number of older drivers grows, it is increasingly important to understand clinical factors associated with an increased risk of MVC. A major barrier, however, is the lack of data. To address this, we linked two large-scale administrative databases, the New Jersey Safety and Health Outcomes (NJ-SHO) Data Warehouse, which contains information on all police-reported crashes in New Jersey from 2004 to 2019, and Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) insurance claims, which contains health care encounters and prescription drug dispensings among older adults in the United States over the same period. This paper explains the linkage process, describes selected work leveraging these data to study MVCs in older drivers, and highlights features and strengths of this linkage for future research. Methods The NJ-SHO–Medicare linkage was performed using categories of name (first and last), sex, age (birth and death date), and residence (state and ZIP code). Matches were ranked by quality and overall confidence. Results After comparing different match strategies, we accepted a match when (1) the name match quality was High or Medium and the age match was High or (2) the name, sex, and residence match categories were all High. Of the 2,722,773 individuals successfully linked, we accepted 2,661,782 matches (97.76% of individuals linked and 91.59% of those submitted for linkage). All accepted matches were Strong or Fair. Among accepted matches who enrolled in Medicare FFS in 2019, 342,422 (28.57%) were 65–69 years old, 619,437 (51.69%) were female, and 955,309 (79.72%) were non-Hispanic White. Only 29,561 (2.47%) experienced an MVC and 25,478 (2.13%) received a citation. The most prevalent clinical conditions ever diagnosed were cataracts (669,044; 55.83%); chronic pain, fatigue, and fibromyalgia (367,165; 30.64%); and glaucoma (287,420; 23.98%). Conclusions With extensive temporal and population coverage, the NJ-SHO–Medicare linkage supports studying the relationships between clinical exposures (e.g., medications ), driving events (e.g., crashes, citations) and medical care trajectories, which can help advance the driving safety of older adults and inform future efforts to integrate administrative data.
Figshare · 2026-02-06
articleOpen accessSupplementary Material 1.
Figshare · 2026-02-06
articleOpen accessSupplementary Material 1.
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025-08-01
articleOpen accessAbstract Background Despite affecting millions of people worldwide, psychiatric disorders are inadequately treated. Understanding how adversity, one of the major risk factors for these disorders, raises risk for psychopathology is essential for identifying new treatments. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a sub-region of prefrontal cortex (PFC), is involved in higher cognitive processes and is highly vulnerable to adverse experiences. However, the impacts of adversity on various cell-types across the cortical layers of the OFC are largely unknown. Here, we interrogated human postmortem OFC (BA11) samples to unravel adversity-induced cell-type-specific transcriptomic changes in psychiatric disorders. Explorations of single-cell epigenomic, as well as, spatial transcriptomic alterations within the same samples are currently underway. Aims & Objectives The primary objective of this study is to disentangle adversity-induced cell-type- and cortical layer-specific molecular changes in the OFC of psychiatric patients. The overarching goal is to determine if adversity is associated with a transdiagnostic subtype of psychiatric disorders that may benefit from targeted therapy. Method We examined 86 individuals (n=32 controls vs n=54 cases with mixed major psychiatric disorders: schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder) with or without history of profound psychological adversity exposure (n=23 with severe adversity and n=31 without). To capture the cell-type-specific effects, we generated single-nucleus Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin sequencing (snATAC-seq) and single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) datasets using 10x Chromium (10x Genomics, USA). To dissect spatial heterogeneity, we produced spatial transcriptomic dataset using Visium (10x Genomics, USA). We performed compositional and differential gene expression analyses, followed by gene ontology and disease enrichment analyses, on the snRNA-seq data. Results After filtering out low-quality nuclei from the snRNA-seq dataset, about ~800,000 nuclei from 15 different cell types were retained. The proportions of inhibitory neurons and astrocytes were significantly lower in individuals exposed to adversity vs those without adversity, while the proportion of oligodendrocytes was higher (Log2FoldChange of -0.51, -1.02 and 0.33, respectively). We identified a large number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in oligodendrocytes and reelin-expressing inhibitory neurons (160 and 265, respectively) only when the contrast was performed among cases based on their history of adversity. Overall, the DEGs showed significant enrichment of psychopathology-associated metabolic processes and phenotypes, including synaptic signaling and inflammatory responses. Discussion & Conclusions These results highlight the striking cell-type-specific impacts of adverse experiences on gene expressions and cellular abundances in the OFC of individuals with psychiatric disorders. The glial cells such as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, which are known to be involved in stress response, as well as inhibitory neuronal subtypes, known to be affected in stress-related disorders, showed marked impacts of adversity in the context of psychopathology. In general, synaptic signaling, transmembrane transports, energy metabolism and immune response pathways were affected, all of which are implicated in psychopathology. Experiments and analyses are underway to further disentangle the regulatory changes affecting transcription by delineating epigenomic modifications and gene co-expression networks within these cell types and to unmask the changes in transcript and cellular abundances across the cortical layers. The study will thus help decompose adversity-induced transcriptomic and gene regulatory changes into cell-type-specific alterations across cortical layers.
A novel technological approach to preventing distracted driving
Journal of Safety Research · 2025-02-14 · 2 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorJournal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025-05-20
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND: Antidepressants are prescribed for depression among older adults but might increase the risk of motor vehicle crash (MVC) through adverse effects (AEs) like sedation, dizziness, and blurred vision. Antidepressant subclasses may have different MVC risks since AE risks vary across subclasses. Our objective was to estimate the comparative one-year risks of MVC upon initiating atypical (AA) or tricyclic (TCA) versus selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. METHODS: We emulated 470 sequential target trials each week from January 6, 2008, through January 1, 2017, using Medicare fee-for-service claims linked to New Jersey police-reported MVCs and driver's licensing data. Our sequential target trial emulation included older adults aged ≥ 66 years with a recent diagnosis of depression who initiated AAs, SSRIs, or TCAs. The unit of analysis was the "person-trial" a unique instance of a person in a sequential trial. Using inverse probability of treatment and censoring weighted Kaplan-Meier estimators to account for potential confounding and selection bias, we estimated the intention-to-treat cumulative incidence and risk ratios (RRs) of MVC over 1 year of follow-up. RESULTS: We identified 13,034 person-trials from 11,604 persons (median [first quartile, third quartile] age: 76.0 [71.0, 82.0] years, 69.8% female, 89.4% non-Hispanic White race). There were 31 (37.6 [95% confidence limits {CLs} 20.3, 59.5] per 1000), 65 (37.6 [95% CLs 25.7, 47.7] per 1000), and 380 (38.0 [95% CLs 24.1, 39.7] per 1000) MVCs among 644 TCA-treated, 2130 AA-treated, and 10,260 SSRI-treated person-trials, respectively. The adjusted RRs were 0.99 (95% CLs 0.72, 1.56) comparing AAs versus SSRIs and 0.99 (95% CLs 0.56, 1.86) comparing TCAs versus SSRIs. CONCLUSION: We observed no differences in the one-year risk of MVC between antidepressant subclasses. When selecting among antidepressant subclasses to manage depression in older adults, MVC risk should not guide prescribing decisions, and other considerations should take precedence.
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025-08-01
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingAbstract Background Dysfunction of the stress response is a major risk factor for psychopathology, however, molecular evidence of the mechanism in humans is limited. Hippocampal cortisol receptors NR3C1 and NR3C2 and their modulators (e.g. FKBP5) are key coordinators of this stress response. Aims & Objectives Here, we explored how expression of NR3C1/2 and FKBP5 are affected by stress in the human brain with spatial transcriptomics. Method Postmortem hippocampal tissues from individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were categorized by lifetime trauma exposure (childhood: n=3; adulthood: n=5; no stress: n=3; controls: n=3). Spatial transcriptomics (Visium, 10x Genomics) was performed to measure spatial gene expression. Hippocampal subregions were manually annotated using subregion specific markers, and the expression of cortisol receptors and FKBP5 was compared across groups for all hippocampal subregions and layers. Results Psychiatric cases with childhood stress exposure exhibited significantly lower FKBP5 expression in the CA4 subregion compared to controls (-35%, PFDR = 0.046) and no stress cases (-53.2%, PFDR = 9.150e-15). FKBP5 was lower in the polymorphic layer of the dentate gyrus compared to controls (-19.7%, PFDR = 0.016) and no stress cases (-29.5%, PFDR = 0.0034). Adulthood stress cases displayed higher FKBP5 expression in the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus compared to controls (+4.54%, PFDR = 0.01242) and no stress cases (+4.75%, PFDR = 0.000573). Cortisol receptor expression was uniform throughout the hippocampus with no difference in expression between stress groups. Discussion & Conclusions The lasting FKBP5 expression changes indicate a potential target for future therapeutic development for psychiatric disorders associated with childhood stress exposure.
Injury Prevention · 2025-01-06
articleBACKGROUND: Three sources used for poisoning surveillance-child fatality reviews (CFRs), poison centre (PC) calls and death certificates-employ disparate data methodologies. Our study objectives were to (1) characterise the number of fatalities captured by CFRs and PC data compared with death certificates by age and (2) compare demographic and substance characteristics of fatalities captured by the three sources. METHODS: We acquired CFR data from the National Fatality Review-Case Reporting System (NFR-CRS), PC calls from the National Poison Data System (NPDS) and death certificate data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) on poisoning fatalities among children 0-17 years old between 2005 and 2020. RESULTS: A total of 6376 poisoning fatalities among children 0-17 years were reported to WONDER, 3460 to NFR-CRS and 1622 to NPDS. Using WONDER as the reference standard, NFR-CRS captured 71.1% of fatalities among infants, and 68.0% among children 1-4 years. NPDS captured 30.9% of fatalities among infants and 59.3% among children 1-4 years. Children≤4 years represented a greater proportion of fatalities in NFR-CRS (25.5%) and NPDS (37.0%) than WONDER (19.9%). NFR-CRS had a slightly higher proportion of fatalities involving Black or African American race (16.8%) compared with WONDER (14.4%). Opioids were the most common fatal substances associated with NFR-CRS and WONDER. CONCLUSIONS: Fatality counts, as well as demographic and substance characteristics of those fatalities, differ between poisoning databases used by investigators and health agencies. Reliable death classification can improve data quality. Optimising poisoning fatality capture is critical for informing effective prevention strategies.
Recent grants
NIH · $487k · 2017–2020
NIH · $3.3M · 2018–2024
NIH · $163k · 2014
NIH · $495k · 2019–2022
Longitudinal study of adverse driving outcomes among adolescents with ADHD
NIH · $4.8M · 2014–2027
Frequent coauthors
- 196 shared
Charles Robbins
National Fire Protection Association
- 98 shared
Harold H. Smith
Southern University
- 98 shared
H Vanderpoel
National Fire Protection Association
- 88 shared
Melissa R. Pfeiffer
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- 74 shared
Dennis R. Durbin
Nationwide Children's Hospital
- 69 shared
Kristina B. Metzger
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- 58 shared
Rachel K. Myers
University of Pennsylvania
- 55 shared
Benjamin E. Yerys
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Labs
Curry LabPI
Education
- 1998
B.A., Biological Anthropology, Pre-medicine
Northwestern University
- 2001
Other, Epidemiology
University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health
- 2007
Ph.D., Epidemiology
Emory University School of Public Health
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