http://dem.infosys.chop.edu/cirp/newsletter/issue5.php

Issue No. 5, April 2008

Findings from New Study Resonate with Media

Child passengers, ages 12 to 17, are more likely to die in a car crash than younger children, according to a new study conducted by Center researchers. Key factors for death included non-use of restraints, high speed roads, and teen drivers. The study findings, published in the March 2008 issue of the journal Archives of Pediatric Medicine, received considerable media attention. More than 1,300 stories ran--in print, on the Web, and on television and radio stations. The findings generated multiple op-ed articles in support of graduated driver licensing (GDL). Highlights of coverage include articles from the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal. In addition, a new educational handout, Teaching Your Teen to be a Smart Passenger: Top 10 Tips for Parents, has been created and is available for distribution for non-profit education purposes. (Read the fact sheet).

Supporting New Jersey’s Teen Driver Safety Efforts

The Center’s Young Driver Research Initiative (YDRI) team released a statement formally supporting new comprehensive, evidence-based recommendations publicly announced by the New Jersey Teen Driver Study Commission on March 26. If adopted into policy, these recommendations will help to reduce the number one killer of teens: motor vehicle crash injury.

"The commission’s recommendations are right in line with the most current research in the field of teen driving," says Flaura Winston, MD, PhD, co-scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention and principal investigator of YDRI. "The research we are conducting with State Farm supports many of the same conclusions concerning graduated driver licensing (GDL), driver education and training, and parents' crucial role in modeling, teaching, and monitoring their teens' driving." (Read CHOP's statement.) (Read the Commission's full report.)

New Study Will Reinforce Child Passenger Safety Guidelines

Occupant protection advocates can expect a study to be released in the May 5 electronic pages of the journal Pediatrics that focuses on safe seating positions for children 0 to 3 years of age. Please visit www.chop.edu/injury on or after May 5 to read more about the findings.

PCVPC to Host Parent Resource Fair

The Philadelphia Collaborative Violence Prevention Center (PCVPC), The Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia, the Consortium, and the Cobbs Creek Recreational Center Advisory Committee are hosting a Parent Resource Fair on Saturday, April 19. This free event will directly link local parents with representatives from 20 community service providers in West and Southwest Philadelphia. Parents and teens also will learn about summer employment opportunities, after-school programs, and other community services in their neighborhoods. It will be held from 2 to 5 PM at the Cobbs Creek Recreation Center, 63rd and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia. For more information, please contact Ayana Bradshaw, MPH, PCVPC coordinator, at (267) 426-7828.

Booster Seats in the News

Kristy Arbogast, PhD, the Center’s associate director of field engineering, was recently interviewed for a USA Today feature on the state of booster seat legislation. (Read the article.) Michigan recently joined the growing list of states with mandatory booster seat laws.(Read the article.) With Michigan’s enactment of this law, there will be 39 states with booster seat requirements that extend to at least a child’s 6th birthday. Michigan’s is considered optimal because it requires child restraints, including booster seats, to age 8 or until a child reaches 4 feet 9 inches in height.

"Hopefully, this will encourage legislators who are trying to pass booster seat laws in other states that have yet to require them," says Suzanne Hill, the Injury Center’s director of Outreach and Advocacy. "Booster seat laws have been proven to increase child restraint use, which has been shown to dramatically lower crash injuries." (Read the Fact Sheet)

CIRP at Lifesavers 2008

Several Injury Center team members will present at the annual Lifesavers Conference in Portland, Oregon. Lifesavers is the premier national highway safety meeting dedicated to reducing the number of deaths and injuries on our roadways. This year’s meeting will be held April 13 to 15. For conference specifics, go to www.lifesaversconference.org.

Here’s a line-up of our presentations. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Sunday, April 13

Session #1, Workshop: "Understanding adolescent perception and experience around driving"
– Flaura Winston, MD, PhD
Session #2, Workshop: "Crash test dummies: An important tool for advancements in child occupant protection"
– Kristy Arbogast, PhD

Monday, April 14

Session #4, Workshop: "Injury risk to children restrained in belt-positioning booster seats: An update with recent data"– Suzanne Hill

Tuesday, April 15

Session #7, Workshop: "Reframing trauma care: Medicaid reimbursement for child restraints"
– Flaura Winston, MD, PhD
Session #8, Workshop: "Program evaluation in the real world: Lessons learned from the Give a Boost program"
– Dana Mortensen

Recent Publications from the Injury Center

Recent Presentations from the Injury Center

  • Arbogast KB. Rear Seat Safety: Who are we protecting and what are their injury risks? Automotive Restraints Council Board of Directors, Palm Coast, FL. March 26, 2008.
  • Balasubramanian S. Comparison of Neck Flexor and Extensor Muscle EMG Responses in Children and Adults. CHOP Research Day, Philadelphia, PA. Feb 27, 2008. (Poster presentation)
  • Durbin DR, Arbogast KB, Jermakian JS, Gowda SM, Caraballo-Perez V. Injury Risk for Children in Rear Impact Crashes. CIREN Public Meeting, Washington, DC. March 25, 2008.
  • Seacrist T. Methods for Validating Passive Cervical Spine Flexion in Finite Element and Multibody Models of Human Pediatric and Adult Cervical Spines. CHOP Research Day, Philadelphia, PA. Feb. 27, 2008. (Poster presentation)
  • Winston F. The Inside Scoop on the Young Driver Research Initiative. Webinar to Driver Educators and Training Administrators (DETA) members, Jan. 29, 2008.
  • Winston F. Saving Teens’ Lives. Haverford High School, Haverford, PA. Feb. 11, 2008.
  • Winston F. Teen Driving: What You Don’t Know Could Kill Your Teen. Advocacy Lecture at The American Academy of Pediatrics/Society for Pediatric Anesthesia, San Diego, CA. April 4, 2008.

 

Focus On:
Joel Fein, MD, MPH

Joel Fein, MD, MPH

Joel Fein, MD, MPH, is committed to preventing youth violence in Philadelphia, one community at a time. As Director and Principal Investigator of the Philadelphia Collaborative Violence Prevention Center (PCVPC), he partners with researchers from Temple University, Drexel University, The University of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Area Research Community Coalition (PARCC) to gather, create, and evaluate programs designed to stop youth violence in West and Southwest Philadelphia.

Established in 2006 as part of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at CHOP, PCVPC is one of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Urban Partnership Academic Centers of Excellence and the first to be based in Philadelphia.

"Our overall vision is to reduce violent injury and exposure in West and Southwest Philadelphia. But our goals and objectives are more specific," says Dr. Fein. “For example, in the future we would like the Center to serve as an information resource about violence and violence prevention for researchers and also for community members. Most important, we want to create effective interventions that can be sustained locally.”

A pediatric emergency medicine physician at CHOP with research interests in violence prevention, mental health, and pain management in children and adolescents, Dr. Fein also chairs the board of directors of the Institute for Safe Families and is on the board of the Philadelphia Anti-Drug Anti-Violence Network.

"As an ER doctor and researcher, I’m also working to bring violence prevention and mental health promotion into the medical arena by developing tools and pathways that ER physicians can really use. For example, through federal grant funding we developed a self-administered computerized behavioral health screening for adolescents who visit the ER," he explains. "In our research using this tool we discovered that some teenagers who are suicidal came to the ER for supposedly non-psychiatric reasons. Today, although the grant has ended, we still use this tool as a standard of care in the ER. What drives me in the work that I do is how to practically fill the voids in the safety net."

Fein's body of work complements and builds on the Center’s research and outreach that focuses on primary prevention. Instead of reacting to violence, PCVPC aims to positively impact a child, family, or community to keep violence at bay.

Research Sponsors Wanted

Our center is performing cutting-edge research on injury prevention in children. Doctors and researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention partner with industry and academia to determine ways to prevent injuries and to effectively cope when injuries do occur. If you are interested in sponsoring our research, please call Karen Matthews, the Center's administrative director, at 215-590-3118.

Support Our Center

The dedicated doctors, researchers, and outreach professionals at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at CHOP are fighting to save the lives of children of all ages. But we need your help. To make an on-line donation, please visit The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation Donation Page and select “Center for Injury Research and Prevention” in the drop-down menu. You also may telephone the CHOP Foundation at 267-426-6500. For more information on our research and programs, please visit www.chop.edu/injury.

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