Welcome to the Center for Injury Research and Prevention: Discovering a Safer World

As long as there are childhood injuries, there will be a need to apply the tools of science to prevent those injuries. The Center for Injury Research and Prevention is a comprehensive pediatric trauma research facility at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia dedicated exclusively to addressing injury, the leading cause of death for children and adolescents.

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Research Programs & Networks

  • Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS)

    In a unique collaboration between academic institutions and private industry, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, The University of Pennsylvania, and State Farm Insurance Companies joined forced in 1997 to form Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS). PCPS soon became the world’s largest child-focused motor vehicle crash surveillance system, and its findings are recognized worldwide.

  • Young Driver Research Initiative (YDRI)

    This multidisciplinary research alliance of The Children's Hospital if Philadelphia and State Farm uses a scientifically rigorous, teen-centered approach to research with the end goal of launching a comprehensive outreach and education initiative proven to reduce young driver crashes.

  • Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS)

    This center-within-a-center is an Industry/University Co-operative Research Center established in 2005 by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Faculty and students work side-by-side to conduct translational research that is practical to industry.

  • Child and Adolescent Reaction to Injury and Trauma (CARIT)

    This program conducts pioneering research into the range of responses that children and their parents experience after pediatric injury so that effective interventions may be developed to reduce post-traumatic stress.

  • Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN)

    As part of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-sponsored network, The Center’s crash investigation team contributes its multidisciplinary analyses of Children’s Hospital and PCPS-based crashes to a rich database, forming the basis for potentially life-changing tools and technologies.

  • Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Philadelphia (IFCK)

    The Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Philadelphia works in the West Philadelphia community to prevent unintentional childhood injury. The coalition's grassroots-based approach focuses on topics such as: home safety, bicycle safety, pedestrian safety alternatives to and reduction of violence.

  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Indefinite Quantities Contract

    As the largest available source of information on children in motor vehicle crashes, the PCPS database is an ideal source data for NHTSA to use in determining regulation and policy. NHTSA currently provides funding for the Center to conduct research across a wide range of research topics including abdominal protection, test dummy development, and improving restraint use in at-risk populations.

News Spotlight


Staff Spotlight:

Rajiv A. Menon, Ph.D.
Rajiv A. Menon, PhD

In his 10 years of service with the Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Rajiv Menon, PhD has worn many hats, including chief administrator and computational engineering core leader. But his mission of helping researchers and auto manufacturers develop better cars for increased occupant safety has never wavered.

As the Center’s Associate Director of Computational Engineering, Menon and his team create multidimensional computer models that replicate children’s kinematics in crash simulations. Using real world results from field investigation as well as the injury biomechanics field, the models promote a better understanding of injury mechanisms and increased new safety technology testing. "Our findings on the mechanisms of injury and child kinematics also help Center researchers quantify both the physical impact of trauma for children and the effects of safety and prevention measures," says Menon.

Now his passion has come full circle with a new project that will move his group’s focus "into the future." Using computational models of existing child restraint products, Menon and his team plan to show child restraint manufacturers that their products can be adapted to work safely in both the European and American market—where safety standards vary. "Kids are kids," explains Menon. "Although Europe and the U.S. may have different safety regulations, one design can be used safely on both continents."

Menon is excited with this prospect because more of these manufacturers’ budgets can hopefully then be spent on researching how to create safer child restraints instead of on manufacturing and marketing two different versions of products for both markets.

A widely-published principal investigator of child safety computational simulation research, Menon earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Wichita State University. Besides his day-to-day duties of managing engineering research projects, he also directs the Center’s Student Education and Training program. Serving as mentor to Drexel University students who gain "real world" experience in a cooperative learning environment, Menon helps them develop their research and project management skills. With his guidance and support, several of these students have gone on to join the Center or doctoral programs around the world. "It’s very rewarding to see these students develop," he says. "I like interacting with them and seeing them grow as members of the CIRP team."