Hearing that Wellington (on the north island on New Zealand) had been struck by an earthquake of 6.8 magnitude, just weeks after being shaken by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, has me thinking that ‘injury prevention’ is so much more broad in scope than perhaps I had previously realised. Having visited Wellington in October 2012, I am familiar […]
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CNS Prescription Drug Abuse
A recent report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the United States highlights the fact that prescription drug abuse is not limited to painkillers but extends into other classes of drugs including central nervous systems stimulants. http://www.samhsa.gov/data/spotlight/spot103-CNS-stimulants-adults.pdf These stimulants are used to treat conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder but […]
Injury prevention and children of adults diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease
Regular readers of the Injury Prevention blog will know that I frequently share articles, reports and other information that changes the way I perceived and/or understood various mechanisms of injury and their broader impact. Hopefully sharing my own experiences is useful to others, particularly if we share an epiphany-of-sorts. Today’s post is also enlightening for […]
Bridging the gap between science and practice
I have spoken and written about the importance of finding ways to implement research findings. I have even gone so far as to suggest that until we implement more of what we already know, there may be little justification for more research. Many in the field share these views. In any case, a recent announcement […]
Cannabis safer than alcohol for drivers (?)
Someone brought to my attention a link to a site with the intriguing name “The Daily Chronic’. It appears to be a pro-cannabis site. They came across a paper in Accid Analysis and Prevention by a pot advocate but which seems to show that marijuana is safer for drivers than alcohol. Even if confirmed, I […]
Beware the predatory OA journal!
For some time I have been corresponding with three WAME (World Association of Medical Editors) colleagues about our shared concern arising from the proliferation of predatory journals. These are those journals, almost invariably Open Access, that invite you to submit your best paper and assure you prompt peer review and quick publication. What they often […]
Injury Prevention and Alzheimer’s Disease
A fascinating article in the August edition of Prevention Science has me looking at Alzheimer’s Disease in a whole different way. Rather than me seeing it as an outcome, a disease which today afflicts tens of millions of people around the world, I now see it as a brain injury which to some extent can be prevented. […]
Measuring child abuse trends using Google searches
Child abuse, along with many other aspects of violence and crime, is extremely difficult to accurately measure. The number of officially reported child abuse cases is just a portion of the actual number of cases in a community. And unfortunately, a significant predictor of how many official cases of child abuse are reported is the […]
Upcoming twitter discussion event
I received an email today from Duncan Vernon of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). On the 30th of July at 8.00pm BST (GMT+1), Duncan will be guest hosting a twitter discussion about an “Editor’s choice” article recently published in Injury Prevention. Public health professionals from a variety of backgrounds regularly participate in […]
The effects of plain packaging of cigarettes
Following a 3-month rollout period, since 1 December 2012 all tobacco products manufactured and sold in Australia have had to be in plain brown packaging. Seventy-five percent of the front of the pack requires a graphic health warning, and the brand name is restricted to a set font and size (see http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2011L02644 for the packaging regulations). As noted on the […]