Policymakers are responsible for developing public health policy interventions, including policies that address injury. However, their efforts are not always informed by the best available research. To raise awareness of the value of injury research and increase knowledge about injury prevention, Center faculty help to inform policymakers and advocates at the local, state and federal levels, and work with both groups to develop empirically-based policy solutions to injury problems. Specifically, this area of practice includes: Summarizing and translating the research literature into evidence-based recommendations Providing testimony to educate policymakers at the local, state or federal level Participating in educational forums for policymakers to provide information about injuries and policy responses Strategizing regarding policy options for reducing injuries - Reviewing injury prevention policy initiatives in jurisdictions throughout the U.S.
Preventing Injuries in Maryland: A Resource for State Policy Makers is designed to provide policy makers and other audiences with easily accessible and understandable information on specific injury problems in Maryland, and offer solutions on how they can be addressed through policy decisions. Each topic includes 3 primary sections: How does this affect the U.S., How does this affect Maryland, and What do we know about solutions. The purpose is to help bridge the gap between injury research and policy. If you would like assistance or to learn more about how to engage in this type of advocacy work, please contact Keshia Pollack kpollack@jhsph.edu or Shannon Frattaroli sfrattar@jhsph.edu . The news media is a powerful mechanism to educate and inform the public about the importance of injury issues. Many effective injury prevention policies, programs and other interventions have not been widely adopted by the public or supported by decision makers. 'Upstream’ interventions in particular require an informed and supportive public to be adopted and implemented successfully. Because both the public and policymakers are influenced by what they read and see in the media, media advocacy is a popular strategy used to enhance public awareness of and support for policy interventions. Center faculty are creating and disseminating new knowledge about the media’s coverage of residential fires and drinking and driving. Results will inform future media advocacy efforts. In the U.S., most fatal fires occur in the home. There are effective prevention strategies for residential fires that are currently underutilized. The news media is one available communication channel to promote such strategies, and analyzing current news coverage is a first step toward incorporating media advocacy into injury prevention efforts related to residential fires. Analysis of one year of coverage from four leading newspapers in Maryland indicated that residential fires are newsworthy and that newspaper coverage routinely includes causes and consequences of fires, but rarely includes prevention messages or puts fires in a public health. Through partnership with fire departments, the news media and survivors, injury prevention can go beyond a simple augmentation of coverage to promote framing more news coverage of routine fire events within a prevention and public health context. Center faculty have been active participants with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Injury Prevention in the creation of a website with key fire information for journalists. This work has been presented to the Congressional Fire Services Institute. Center faculty are currently undertaking two case studies of news media coverage of drinking and driving. In the first study, a qualitative content analysis of print and televised news coverage of recent female celebrity arrests for drinking and driving is being completed. Coverage of a public figure or celebrity’s experience in relation to various health topics has been linked to shifts in general disease awareness, as well as changes in medical decisions and prevention activities among the lay public. It is not yet known, however, to what extent news coverage of drinking and driving delivers a public health message, and to what extent such coverage may have any capacity to promote public health objectives. The second study is a multi-state case study comparison of print coverage of fatal auto crashes involving a young drinking driver. The six states in the study were selected on the basis of rates of young driver fatalities, and results will compare differences in states’ media coverage of drinking and driving as a public health problem with a policy solution. For more information contact Katherine Clegg Smith. | 
