Center to Focus on Injury Prevention Among Youth

Posted 09/24/2009
David Sleet of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lent a public health perspective to the topic of motor vehicle injury prevention recently as part of the official launch of the U-M Center for Injury Prevention Among Youth (CIPY). CIPY is a joint effort of the U-M School of Public Health and UMTRI, sponsored by UMTRI and the U-M Office of the Vice President for Research.

The goal of CIPY is to build on existing strengths at U-M to conduct research and to train researchers and practitioners to reduce injuries and fatalities among youth. A concurrent goal is to reduce the economic cost associated with those injuries. Jean Thatcher Shope, UMTRI associate director, serves as director of CIPY.

"We have U-M faculty across several academic units who are engaged in research related to youth injury prevention," said Shope. "CIPY encourages interdisciplinary collaboration among these researchers and helps build capacity for training and education."

Research projects by CIPY faculty members address a number of topics related to understanding and preventing substance abuse among youth and promoting teen driver safety.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among U.S. children and teens. Among other threats to youth are child maltreatment, playground injuries, poisonings, residential fire-related injuries, suicide, traumatic brain injury, water hazards, and youth violence.

In addition to David Sleet's presentation, CIPY will address a variety of injury prevention topics through its seminar series during the 2009-2010 academic year. All seminars will be held from 3-5 p.m. at the U-M School of Public Health, Lane Auditorium (1690), SPH 1. Upcoming seminars, listed below, are free and open to the public.

October 21, 2009
Title: Injury and Violence Implications of Teenage Employment in the U.S.
Speaker: Carol Runyan, MPH, PhD, Director, UNC Injury Prevention Research Center, and Professor, Health Behavior and Health Education, University of North Carolina School of Public Health.

November 4, 2009
Title: Injuries in the Developing World: A Challenge for Health Systems
Speaker: Adnan A. Hyder, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of International Health, and Director, International Injury Research Unit at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

December 2, 2009
Title: Pediatric Injury Prevention
Speaker: Andrea C. Gielen, ScD, Professor of Health, Behavior, and Society, and Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For more information about the Center or upcoming seminars, please visit the CIPY website.

Photo: Jean Shope and David Sleet at the CIPY launch event.

Photo credit: Arushi Baluja