Injury Center

Center faculty member and former director Susan P. Baker has been named a Public Health Hero by Research!America, the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance. The honor comes in recognition of her research in injury prevention and driving safety which has resulted in national passenger protection laws and thousands of lives saved.

In order to bring recognition to the public health professionals who work tirelessly every day to protect us, Research!America designates the Monday before Thanksgiving as Public Health Thank You Day. Sue is one of eight individuals selected to be highlighted this year in honor of their tremendous accomplishments in the field of public health.

On Public Health Thank You Day, "we recognize our ‘health protection heroes' who work tirelessly every day to promote the health of people of all ages," said Julie Louise Gerberding, MD, MPH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. "The 14,000 public health professionals at the CDC.... say ‘thank you' to each of these heroes on the frontlines of health. As a result of their dedication, we are all able to live healthier, safer, and longer lives."

More information on Public Health Thank You Day and Research!America’s Public Health Heroes can be found at the Research!America Website.

Another Center-Affiliated Student Recognized with Prestigious Award

Samantha L. Illangasekare, MPH, a PhD candidate in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society and advisee of Center director Andrea Gielen, has recently been awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral Fellowship National Research Service Award (NRSA) from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The objective of the Kirschstein-NRSA Individual Predoctoral Fellowship is to provide support for promising doctoral candidates who will be performing dissertation research and training in scientific health-related fields relevant to the missions of the participating NIH Institutes during the tenure of the award.

Samantha’s research will describe for the first time the syndemic of violence, substance abuse and HIV among low income urban women. Working with faculty affiliated with the Lighthouse Studies at Peer Point, a community-based research center within the Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Ms. Illangasekare will recruit and interview women to determine the prevalence and mental health impacts of these co-occurring conditions.

“Samantha’s work will yield new insights into intervention opportunities to reduce the burden of intimate partner violence and improve women’s health”, said Andrea Gielen, ScD, ScM, director of the Center. “On behalf of the Injury Center, I congratulate her on this impressive accomplishment and recognition from NIMH.”

Two Center-affiliated students awarded CDC Dissertation Awards

The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has awarded dissertation grants to Hopkins public health students Sarah Lindstrom and Susan Ghanbarpour. These represent the only dissertation funding awarded this year by NCIPC.

Ms. Lindstrom is a PhD candidate in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society and advisee of Center director Andrea Gielen. Her dissertation work aims to understand what factors of the school, social and physical environments encourage or discourage violence from occurring at school, and how these factors contribute to the occurrence and severity of that violence. Ms. Lindstrom is using concept mapping, an innovative research method rarely used in injury research, to explore these issues with samples of students recruited in Baltimore City.

Ms Ghanbarpour is a DrPH student in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health working with faculty member Daniel Webster’s Center-funded intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention trial. Her dissertation is an outgrowth of this project and is partially supported by the Center. Her research seeks to answer 4 main questions on IPV: 1. What safety behaviors do women in abusive relationships know about and practice, and how effective do they believe them to be? 2. What are the issues and circumstances that influence women's decisions to practice particular safety strategies? 3. What did women think about a risk assessment and safety planning intervention they received? 4. What are the critical elements of a customizable safety planning tool designed for use by professionals who serve IPV victims?

“Training the next generation of leaders in injury prevention and policy is an essential ingredient to the continued success of our efforts in reducing injury and its impact on society,” said Andrea Gielen ScD, ScM, director of the Center. “On behalf of everyone at the Injury Center, I congratulate Sarah and Susan on their well-deserved recognition from NCIPC.”

New Study from Center Faculty Bishai and Gielen finds Grandparents a Safe Source of Childcare

Contrary to popular belief, grandparent care is not associated with more childhood injuries, according to a new report from the Center for Injury Research and Policy. In fact, for working parents, having grandparents as caregivers can cut the risk of childhood injury roughly in half. The study is among the first to examine the relationship between grandparents’ care and childhood injury rates. The results are published in the November 2008 issue of Pediatrics.