Outreach Accomplishments

The key outreach accomplishments for the WVU ICRC over recent years have resulted from the Center's focus upon information dissemination and increasing collaboration with local, regional, and national stakeholders.

Information Dissemination Activities
Center faculty members have been prolific in their collective efforts to disseminate the results of their scholarly work. During the past four years, faculty members delivered 292 scientific presentations at a variety of regional, national, and international conferences. Faculty research activities were also disseminated through the ICRC’s newsletter, The Safety Net, which is published twice each year and distributed electronically to hundreds of individuals, offices, and agencies. In addition to our research, each newsletter also highlights ongoing training, outreach, and other relevant Center activities.

The ICRC Website
The Center’s website has also been a very useful, efficient, and timely way to share information and data with a large audience. According to figures compiled by the WVU Office of Information Technology, during the period from 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2010 the ICRC website was accessed by a total of 37,677 visitors, with an average of 103 unique visitors per day. While the majority of users were from the U.S., users from at least 48 other countries also accessed our website during this year. A particular highlight of our website is that it provides injury control stakeholders with user-defined data tables on the costs and incidence of injuries and violence and the potential return on investment from prevention, for all 50 states. The available tables include information on the incidence of hospital-admitted injuries, the costs associated with these injuries, and the incidence of impaired driving. During the past performance period, these state-specific injury tables have been downloaded over 1350 times by users of our website (data as of 8/31/11).

Working with the WVU Health Sciences Communication Department, the ICRC has actively disseminated injury control information through media interactions across the United States and beyond. Over 900 media pieces have highlighted our faculty’s research and expertise over the most recent 4-year period. These media reports have covered high profile topics such as ATV injuries, suicide misclassification, prescription drug abuse, sports-related concussions, and the effectiveness of Graduated Driver Licensing. 

Educating Policymakers
The Center has made important contributions to educating policymakers at the state and national level. Within West Virginia, our research examining the epidemiology and costs of All Terrain Vehicle (ATV)-related injuries led to the passage of the state’s first ATV law. The Center has worked closely with members of the House Transportation Committee to help maintain West Virginia’s mandatory motorcycle helmet legislation. The legislature also requested ICRC input during deliberations on a bill related to traumatic brain injury rehabilitation services. During recent years, ICRC faculty member Julian Bailes, MD has been at the forefront of informing policymakers at all levels on the importance of concussion recognition in sports activities, potential rule changes to prevent head injuries, and the need for appropriate evaluation and return-to-play guidance following concussion in athletes.

Partnerships and Community Service
In 2010 the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources re-established the Injury Program within the Office of Maternal Child and Family Health and hired a full time Injury Program Director. Since that time the ICRC has worked closely with the state Injury Program to gather and analyze relevant injury data, convene a statewide planning group, and establish a new state plan for injury control. ICRC faculty members are participating in a number of other relevant partnership initiatives, including involvement in the West Virginia Domestic Violence Fatality Review team, the West Virginia Council for the Prevention of Suicide, and the West Virginia Controlled Substances Advisory Board.

The ICRC also helps support community-based injury prevention and control outreach activities. Through a variety of school-based programs, health fairs, and community sponsored events, our affiliated trauma program staff have provided annual educational outreach to over 2000 individuals in the region during the past performance period. Additionally, since 2008, ICRC faculty affiliate Keith Zullig, PhD has directed the West Virginia Prescription Drug Abuse Quitline - a telephone hotline that aims to help individuals stop abusing prescription drugs. The Quitline served over 1000 individuals in its first two years of operation.

Beginning in 2010, the ICRC began collaborating with the West Virginia University Center for Excellence in Disabilities (CED) in an effort to improve traumatic brain injury (TBI) surveillance and establish a more complete statewide TBI registry. This is an essential component of identifying individuals who are in need of the TBI services available through the CED. To date, we have expanded TBI surveillance efforts from a few participating trauma centers to all non-federal hospitals (utilizing hospital discharge data), and have begun exploring use of the statewide EMS data system to better identify TBI survivors.

In addition to our work in West Virginia, the ICRC has provided technical assistance to other injury programs and practitioners in our region. Most notably, we have worked closely with the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Core Violence and Injury Prevention Program. Specifically, Center Director Jeff Coben assisted Pennsylvania with the development of their grant application for the CDC-supported Teen Dating Violence Prevention Initiative and remained involved for the duration of the project, providing consultation and assistance on a variety of project-related activities. ICRC faculty members have also provided technical assistance to the Maryland Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and our faculty affiliates located at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation have provided data and assistance to numerous state programs through their leadership of the Children’s Safety Network Economics and Data Analysis Resource Center.