About Our Center
For more than 30 years, the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy has played a key role in redefining injury as a pressing public health problem and promoting injury research as a scientific discipline.
Mission & Vision | Our Priorities | From Science to Practice | Guiding Principles | 30th Anniversary Video
The Center is dedicated to closing the gap between injury research and practice to prevent injuries and ameliorate their consequences.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy relies on a variety of funding sources to support its work, including government, philanthropic, individual and corporate. Since its inception in 1987, the Center has received core funding from the CDC.
Mission
The Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy is a collaborative of injury prevention experts who conduct innovative research, teach today’s practitioners and tomorrow’s leaders, and translate discoveries into effective solutions to the devastating and costly problem of injuries in our society.
The Center’s mission is achieved through three areas of work:
Vision
To live in a society that is safe, where all people are free from the burden of life-altering injuries.
Our Priorities
Four injury topics represent the Center’s current priorities and reflect what we believe will have the greatest return on investments in outreach, training and education, and research in terms of lives saved and quality of lives improved.
The Center has also identified five populations of special interest. These groups are vulnerable to higher risk for experiencing certain types of injuries or injury outcomes for a variety of reasons including age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and exposure to physical and/or psychological trauma.
- Children and adolescents
- Older adults
- Populations affected by health disparities
- Veterans and members of the military
- Trauma survivors
Guiding Principles
- Freedom from the burden of injury and violence is a key to health
- Scientific excellence and integrity are essential to impactful research
- Health inequities and disparities can and should be eliminated
- Policymakers, practitioners and researchers must be equipped with the most current information and training available to effectively address the injury prevention challenges faced today and to come in the future
- Injury prevention, as a discipline, addresses both intentional and unintentional injuries.
- Opportunities to intervene and to reduce the burden of injuries exist along a spectrum that includes primary prevention, acute care and rehabilitation
- Collaboration sparks transformative discoveries
- A multidisciplinary, multi-sector approach yields the most effective solutions to injury problems
- The science and practice of injury prevention is relevant to and inclusive of communities and populations throughout the world
- Translation of scientific research into effective programs and policies is a central strategy to reduce the burden of injury
From Science to Practice
The science of injury prevention and control requires in-depth study of injuries to identify patterns, risk factors, prevention opportunities and treatment options. Injury research has demonstrated the lifesaving potential of safety products, laws and new approaches to medical care.
Pioneering injury research, including some of our own, has resulted in lifesaving practices and policies in the United States. Some examples from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
- Seat belts have saved an estimated 255,000 lives between 1975 and 2008
- School-based programs to prevent violence have been shown to cut violent behavior 29% among high school students and 15% across all grade levels
- Ignition interlocks, or in-car breathalyzers, can reduce the rate of re-arrest among drivers convicted of driving while intoxicated by a median of 67%
- Tai chi and other exercise programs for older adults have been shown to reduce falls by as much as half among participants
Source: About CDC's Injury Center