“Dr. Mark Rosenberg, president and CEO of the Task Force for Global Health, is being honored by Research!America, for his ground-breaking research in advancing injury prevention and road safety. Rosenberg will receive the 2013 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Award for Sustained National Leadership for reframing the concept that road traffic crashes are not accidents.

The award will be presented to Rosenberg at the 17^th annual Research!America Advocacy Awards at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. on March 13. The dinner attracts more than 400 leaders from government, industry, academia and health advocacy organizations to recognize top medical and health research advocates, who have made an impact in advancing the nation’s commitment toward research.

“Dr. Rosenberg has been a champion of public health issues and provided incredible leadership in advocating for increased funding for research,” said Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research!America, in a release.

The Decatur-based Task Force is a nonprofit public health organization that works to improve the lives and health of millions of people around the world.

“Advocating for global health research is always exciting because there is always an ‘ah-ha’ moment when people come to understand the problem, identify with those who suffer from it, and become optimistic about our ability to solve it and improve millions or hundreds of millions of lives — through research,” Rosenberg wrote in an email about the significance of receiving the award.

He went on to say: “Global health research is often a hard sell because unlike the person who provides medical care and can meet the grateful patient, global health research is often designed to help people in far away countries, people who may not even be born yet.  And the support of Research!America for both specific areas of research and for those advocating for this research has been crucial.”

Rosenberg has broad experience in medicine and public health, ranging from infectious diseases to injuries and mental health. His advocacy has increased funding for research and programmatic interventions for injury control and improved traffic safety not only in the U.S. but also in many developing countries.

He has conducted research and consulted widely on effective collaboration in global health. In addition, Rosenberg worked with President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica to organize a coalition to address road traffic injuries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Before assuming his current position, Rosenberg served 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including early work in smallpox eradication, enteric diseases and HIV/AIDS. He was instrumental in establishing CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) and became the first permanent director in 1994, serving as director and Assistant Surgeon General until 1999.

The ongoing debate regarding whether visors should be mandatory safety equipment in the National Hockey League (NHL) is likely to get some renewed attention after one of the league’s players, Rangers’ Marc Staal, suffered a serious eye injury in a recent game. Warning: don’t watch the video if you are squeamish.

http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/eye-injury-to-ranger-raises-issue-of-helmet-visors-again/?src=xps

Visors are currently optional in the NHL despite the league’s ongoing support of a rule that would mandate their use. What’s the holdup? It’s the players union. The union’s position is that players should have the choice.

This situation captures the tension that frequently exists between individual choice and population level benefit, a tension we frequently see in injury prevention interventions and public health more broadly (Check out the legal battle over New York City’s ban on large sugar sweetened beverage). Should the NHL implement a rule mandating visors when the players themselves are not in favor of such a rule?

Hello everyone,

My name is Greg Tung and I am the new senior blog editor for IP. I am also a new Assistant Professor in the Colorado School of Public Health where I am affiliated with the Health Systems, Management, and Policy Department and the Pediatric Injury Prevention, Education and Research Program.  Just writing to introduce myself and to ask that you please let me know if you have any input or feedback related to the blog.

Don’t worry, Barry hasn’t gone anywhere.  You will still see posts from him periodically.

I am looking forward to the discussion.

Best,

Greg

Gregory.tung@ucdenver.edu

Researchers in Canada have combined two technologies – driving simulation and functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain – to identify the parts of the brain involved in a variety of real-world driving maneuvers.

Minimal brain activation was found during simple driving tasks such as turning right (in the US, turning left in Australia), consistent with the ’automation’ of some basic driving skills.

Importantly, the team also identified the parts of the brain active during complex driving tasks such as turning across oncoming traffic (ie turning left in the US, turning right in Australia) while distracted. We are well aware of the role distraction plays in crash risk, and so to simulate talking on hands-free phone participants were asked to perform an auditory task.

Distracted driving resulted in a considerably different ‘driving map’. The research findings ”suggest that the distracted brain sacrificed areas in the…brain important for visual attention and alertness to recruit enough brain resources to perform a secondary, cognitive task.” These findings are also of particular interest to those developing and adminstering fitness-to-drive assessments: the findings suggesting that assessments should incorporate a variety of driving circumstances of increasing complexity, including requiring the driver to converse with the Examiner.

Find the link to the full article here: http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00053/abstract

Michael Watson, from the Univ of Nottingham, kindly sent this information to the blog:

In February an Evidence Update was produced by the English National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). The document provides a summary of new evidence from around the world relevant to strategies to prevent unintentional injuries among children and young people aged under 15’. It includes sections on: injury surveillance, home safety, road safety and leisure safety.

In relation to home safety for example, new key references include RCTs from the UK and USA as well as a mixed method evaluation of a national home safety equipment scheme that targeted the most disadvantaged families in England. This Evidence Update highlights key points from the new research and provides a commentary describing its strengths and weaknesses.

http://www.evidence.nhs.uk/nhs-evidence-content/evidence-updates

Editors note: On the one hand this is encouraging, but on the other it is worth noting that while NICE kindly provides guidance, it does not provide any funding for implementation. This is all too typical of how many governmental bodies behave towards injury prevention. It needs to change but I confess I have no idea how it will short of massive public pressure!

I have often asserted that the single most effective preventive measure for reducing motor vehicle injuries is reducing speed. A report in USA Today describes a movement in the UK to this end.

It seems appropriate that it comes from the UK because that was where I first found convincing evidence of how effective it could be. The problem then – probably 20 years ago – was that few municipalities were choosing to go this route and there was no indication of how vigorously the limits would be enforced.  In part the British move is intended to encourage bicycling and walking, but safety concerns dominate. And it is encouraging that there is broad support for imposing 20-mph limits. Already several important cities —  Oxford, Cambridge, York, Bath, Bristol, Liverpool have adopted this limit.

It is not surprising that the move is opposed by the RAC (the UK equivalent of the AAA). There is even support from central government which has reversed its  earlier position advocating that lower limits apply only to few streets. In areas that have already implemented the 20 mph restriction there have been fewer injuries and deaths (although I have not seen the data).

There was a posting by Glen Kessler in the Washington Post in mid January in a column called “Fact Checker” which argued that Bill Clinton’s assertion about the effect of the expiry of the assault weapons ban was greatly exaggerated.

Clinton is quoted as stating,  “Half of all mass killings in the United States have occurred since the assault weapons ban expired in 2005, half of all of them in the history of the country.”  at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 9, 2013.

Kessler checked various sources of data and concluded that the statement was greatly exaggerated. He acknowledged however that much depended on the definitions used and the data examined. Neither of these criteria will surprise most readers of this blog. Mother Jones, one of my favourite sources, did its own analysis and concluded that “more than 40 percent of mass shootings in the past 30 years have taken place since the assault weapon ban ended.”

Kessler remains convinced that Clinton overstated the effect and cautions “uncertainty in the data means politicians need to be very careful in making claims about gun violence.” Editor: Of course I agree. The pro-gun lobby is assiduous in searching for holes in anti-gun arguments even though my impression is that even if there were none it would not deter them from maintaining that guns are good for you. An interesting and revealing footnote to this story is that the column by Kessler attracted no less that 1414 comments!! I have not had the time to see how many agree with Kessler but the first few seem not to do so.

If anyone does go through them, please share the results!

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examining self-reported seatbelt use in jurisdictions with primary versus secondary enforcement across the United States revealed that, whilst in general self-reported seatbelt use increased over the study period of 2002 to 2010, jurisdictions with primary enforcement laws had significantly higher seatbelt use than jurisdictions with secondary enforcement laws  (89% vs. 80%).

The distinction between primary and secondary enforcement may require an explanation for those outside of the US. Primary enforcement seatbelt laws mean that Police can stop a vehicle if they see someone not wearing a seatbelt, and the relevant citation can then be issued. Secondary seatbelt laws allow the Police to only issue citations for not wearing a seatbelt after stopping the vehicle for a different driving offence (such as speeding). Thirty-two US states had primary seatbelt laws at July 2012.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437512000977

Seatbelts play a crucial role in reducing injury in the event of a motor vehicle crash, and in many instances they may be the difference between life and death. Seatbelts are particularly important for the smallest occupants, children, with a 54% – 71% reduction in fatal injury for the youngest passengers.

Other jurisdictions such as the state of Queensland in Australia have legislation protecting our youngest passengers, with mandatory child seats (such as boosters) required for children under the age of seven. After the age of seven, parents are able to seat their child in an adult seatbelt, however the size of the child (height in particular) requires consideration also. For example, my son – one of the smallest in his grade – progressed to an adult seatbelt only at age 11. Such individual differences highlight the difficulties with legislation based on an age-related criterion.

I am not suggesting you accept this suggestion, but it is amusing, intriguing, and somewhat sensible. Given that it comes from Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, it deserves consideration. In his words, “instead of submitting your paper to one journal you should auction it to the highest bidder. Today I did it.” Smith explains, “Authors… estimate the highest impact journal in which they might reasonably get published, and, … then might wait months only for their paper to be rejected.” But Smith notes, as I used to remind my students, journals need authors almost as  much as authors need journals. Thus the idea of auctioning your paper. Smith came across an old paper, brushed it up, and, initially, offered the paper through Twitter and received four offers. It seems he accepted one 0 He concludes, “This looks like the future to me. Let’s us authors turn the tables.”

Editor: Its not clear where the ‘auctioning’ comes in but, as is often the case with Smith at his provocative best, he is trying to make a point so let’s not worry about the details. Clearly this gives us food for thought. That said, I would not advise authors who are lesser lights to run this route before trying the customary pathways to publication.

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/12/03/richard-smith-why-not-auction-your-paper/

The 2^nd United Nations (UN) Global Road Safety Week is to be held from 6^th to 12^th May 2013. This week marks the beginning of the third year of a 10-year-long international initiative, “the Decade of Action for Road Safety.” The focus of this week is to raise awareness about pedestrian safety. This week has two types of goals: short-term, a fatality-free week and long-term, promotion of safe walking. The following actions are proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to make this week fatality free: increasing awareness and enforcement of existing traffic laws and by implementing “quick wins” in road infrastructure such as providing street lights near pedestrian areas, recuperating sidewalks from business owners, improving safety of school routes, and promoting use of reflective materials by pedestrians. Similarly, the following actions are proposed to promote safe walking in the longer term: advocacy and support for installing sidewalks, speed calming measures, traffic diversion, ensuring vehicle safety standards that protect pedestrians (e.g., shock absorbing bumpers), enhancing trauma care, and improving road safety education. The proposed actions are expected to contribute in preventing as many as 5 000 pedestrians’ deaths per week on the roads worldwide.

Editor: This is a great opportunity for us to promote road safety messages across different levels of society i.e., from stakeholders to general public. We all can play a role in promoting specific actions for pedestrian safety in our local settings e.g., by actively participating or organizing awareness activities. The importance of this week from an advocacy standpoint should not be ignored. At present, seven countries have registered events related to the 2^nd UN Global Road Safety Week at the WHO website. If you have ideas for making this week a success or you are holding an event, please do share with all of us.

You can also register your event at the WHO website:

http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/2013/events/en/index.html