About the Center for Injury Prevention
Center for Injury Prevention Links
The focus of the Center is to develop multidisciplinary intervention, surveillance, and evaluation programs in order to focus greater attention and resources to fight injury in much the same way we fight cancer, heart disease, and AIDS.
The Center achieves its mission through a unique collaboration of medicine, public health, sociology, and public policy within a program of research and education.
Selected Accomplishments and Initiatives
• Direct the DC Safe Communities Project, a local injury prevention initiative that brings together a coalition from medicine, education, law enforcement, public safety, social services and others from the community to define local problems and develop programs to address these issues.
• Conduct research on bicycle safety, pedestrian injuries and public knowledge of safety laws with grants through the District of Columbia Government and the US Department of Transportation.
• Conduct research on impact biomechanics in collaboration with the GW School of Engineering National Crash Analysis Center.
• Conduct a violence detection program at the George Washington University Hospital's emergency department. All patients are screened for exposure to violence and are matched with appropriate support from medical center and community resources as needed.
• Administratively manages the Metropolitan Regional American Trauma Society.
• Involved in the development of the emergency health care practitioner training component of the American Trauma Society program Second Trauma. "Second Trauma" is the personal trauma experienced by the friends and family members of patients involved in a traumatic injury.
• Co-hosted a regional injury prevention workshop sponsored by the Region III office of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
• Established a pilot training program to train newborn nursery health care providers and new parents on the appropriate installation of automobile child safety seats through funding by Toyota USA.
• Facilitated a national consensus conference for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the Medical Indications for Airbag Disconnection. Expert physicians representing 17 medical specialty societies participated.
• Developed the model plan to evaluate the trauma center system in the District of Columbia through a grant from the Division of Trauma and EMS, Department of Health and Human Services.