Each year Center staff and faculty offer Capstone opportunities for Master’s level students. The following represent current (2011/2012) opportunities. For more information on these or other ideas for Capstone projects with the Injury Center, please contact Andrea Gielen at agielen@jhsph.edu
Housing Characteristics and Child Injury Risks: A New Tool for Researchers and Policy Makers
Objectives: To describe the extent of substandard housing conditions and its association with parents’ safety behaviors and children’s injury risk in East Baltimore; understand how implementation and enforcement of housing policies affect the presence of substandard housing; and create and validate a new Children’s Housing Assessment for a Safer Environment (CHASE) form for use by housing authorities and others.
Faculty: Andrea Gielen, agielen@jhsph.edu
Skills: literature review; manuscript preparation; qualitative and quantitative methods
The Johns Hopkins Home Safety Study
Objectives: This community based participatory research project will measure diffusion and the impact of a community promotion program designed to increase the use of smoke alarms, CO alarms, and safe hot water temperatures among inner city communities in East Baltimore. The study utilizes community health workers and the CARES mobile safety center to enhance services provided by the Baltimore City Fire Department.
Faculty: Andrea Gielen, agielen@jhsph.edu
Skills: literature review; manuscript preparation; data collection; data management; data analysis; community promotion
Improving the Emotional Well-being of People with Limb Loss
Objectives: Traditionally, the emotional and psychological needs of people with limb loss were seen as the responsibility of psychologists, social workers, or the primary care physician. However, prosthetists may be in the best position to identify the emotional and psychological needs of individuals with limb loss. The goal of the project is to develop an innovative educational program for prosthetists that will empower them to take a more active role in the emotional and psychological well-being of their patients. This includes development of emotional well-being screening tool and resource guide, as well as a training program for prosthetic providers.
Faculty: Stephen Wegener, swegener@jhsph.edu
Skills: development of study materials – protocol, process and outcome measures, data management using qualitative and quantitative methods. Assessing the implementation of legislative and rules aimed at improving safety for children who ride all-terrain vehicles
Objectives: To examine the implementation of state and local laws addressing all-terrain vehicle (ATV) safety for children, including helmet requirements, minimum age restrictions, vehicle size, and parental supervision. The aims are to: 1) document the number of states that have passed ATV safety legislation and municipalities that have adopted local policy; 2) identify the barriers and obstacles to implementing and enforcing ATV safety requirements at the state and local levels; and 3) provide recommendations to increase the effectiveness of ATV safety laws and regulations aimed at protecting children from the risks of ATV use. This research is developmental and will provide valuable information to further efforts to prevent ATV-related injuries among children.
Faculty: Stephen Bowman, smbowman@jhsph.edu
Skills: Literature review; policy analysis; manuscript preparation
Safe Sleep
Objectives: To determine the accuracy of information available online about infant safe sleep. Every year in the United States, more than 4,500 infants die suddenly of no immediately obvious cause. While the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Back to Sleep campaign has led to increased supine sleeping and coincided with a dramatic reduction in SIDS since 1994, staggering racial and ethnic disparities have persisted. A quick review of parenting and child safety websites reveal inaccurate, incorrect and outdated information about various infant safe sleep issues, including but not limited to crib standards and safe sleep best practices. We would like to systematically review parenting, medical and child safety websites to document the extent to which they are current and consistent with the most recent advances in infant safe sleep. Further, we would like to inform the organizations/individuals who produces the website about their status and document if they update and/or correct the information they provided.
Faculty: Eileen McDonald, emcdonal@jhsph.edu
Skills: literature review, study methodology for internet studies, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation, child safety advocacy. Maryland Violent Death Reporting System
Objectives: The Maryland Violent Death Reporting System (MVDRS) is a surveillance project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). The goal of the project is to collect data on incidents of violent death in Maryland from sources such as death certificates, Medical Examiner reports, and police reports. The student experience will include collecting data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for Maryland (OCME) and entering data from OCME, police reports, and death certificates into the computer system electronically. The student may also participate in data review, quality checking tasks, data analyses, literature reviews and manuscript preparation.
Faculty: Andrea Gielen, agielen@jhsph.edu
Skills: Research and data entry, writing and communication skills, attention to detail. |
