Affiliate Safe Community Support Centre
University of North Carolina
Injury Prevention Research Center

Country: United States of America
Number of inhabitants: 301,139,947
Programme started year: 1987
Affiliate Safe Community Support Centre: Designation year: 2008
http://www.iprc.unc.edu

For further information contact:

Carol W. Runyan, Director
UNC-Injury Prevention Research Center
Suite 500, 137 East Franklin Street, CB7505
27599-7505
Chapel Hill, NC
United States of America
Phone +1 919 966-2251
Fax: +1 919 966-0466
E-mail: iprc@unc.edu

1) The provision of Centre programs and services utilize multidisciplinary and cross sectoral approaches.

The centre’s mission is to build the field of injury prevention and control through a combination of interdisciplinary scholarly approaches to research, intervention, and evaluation as well as through the training of the next generation of researchers and practitioners.

2) The Centre provides a framework for promoting collective action which includes involvement with community networks.

The centre has been involved in multiple research and training activities with communities aimed at the prevention and control of injuries for twenty years. A current example is the PREVENT program, (Preventing Violence Through Education Networking and Technical Assistance), a training program for practitioners in violence prevention and the development and distribution of the Core Competencies for Injury and Violence Prevention at a national level.

3) The Centre provides consultative support to communities in the establishment of Safe Community initiatives.

In collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet, the centre will use a similar model to PREVENT as a tool for training on program development and evaluation of Safe Communities Programs.

4) The Centre facilitates and supports community-based strategic planning processes.

An integral part of the PREVENT program is the development of strategic planning processes to reduce injuries and change institutions so that injury prevention activities can be implemented and evaluated more efficiently.

5) The Centre demonstrates leadership and stewardship in addressing priority injury issues, high risk, and vulnerable groups.

The University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC), one of five original “centers of excellence” for research in injury prevention in the United States, was created and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1987. In 1998, IPRC joined with the other centres of excellence to establish the National Association of Injury Control Research Centers, NAICRC which has since become the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR). Much of the activities conducted by the centre include developing, implementing, and evaluating prevention interventions to prevent injuries as well as injury research involving vulnerable populations. For example, IPRC has an extensive track record on studying child abuse and developing strategies for its prevention.

6) The Centre provides expert services and knowledge in the area of injury data and injury surveillance issues.

In addition to contributions to injury prevention in North Carolina, IPRC has helped develop the injury infrastructure on a regional and national level. In collaboration with the injury control research center at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, IPRC developed and continues to support the Southeastern Regional Injury Control Network (SERICN). SERICN is comprised of representatives (primarily directors) from injury and violence prevention programs with the state health departments of eight states in the southeast region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Representatives from other state agencies and non-governmental organizations that address traffic safety, emergency medical services, and prevention of injuries to children are represented as well. . IPRC also has contributed to the development of injury control infrastructure through surveillance activities, through training, and through the integration of research into practice.

7) The Centre demonstrates a long term commitment to supporting Safe Communities and the Safe Community Network within their organizations strategic plan.

One of the key areas of interest of IPRC is the development of sound evaluation strategies to improve the evidence on what interventions work for reducing injuries nationally and at a global level. Using strategies and infrastructure developed at IPRC there is strong interest in improving and developing sound strategies for program development and evaluation within the Safe Communities Network. The centre’s values include also:

• promoting rigor and integrity in all aspects of our work,
• identifying, creating, and seizing opportunities to enhance scientific progress and application of knowledge to prevent injury;
• creating an intellectual home in which faculty, staff, and students find collegiality, mentoring, and assistance in realizing their professional and academic goals;
• embracing new ideas with enthusiasm while planning strategically for the future;
• nurturing an atmosphere of open communication, sharing of ideas, and interdisciplinary collaboration in which good science and practice merge;
• supporting forward-thinking leadership who bring national and international perspectives;
• providing high quality service to affiliated faculty, staff and students for project development management and dissemination;
• ensuring that every person is clear about their roles and responsibilities and does what they are supposed to do;
• fostering synergies among ideas, individuals and functions such that everyone engaged with the Center contributes fully based on their unique and complementary roles; and
• being adaptable to shifts in leadership, staffing and external conditions while maintaining organizational stability.
  

8) The Centre supports those responsible at the community level to utilize appropriate indicators to evaluate community processes, effects of change and injury rates.

9) The Centre disseminates their experiences both at national and international levels.
International Support:
Support to the Center has come from Multilateral institutions such as WHO/PAHO, multiple international NGOs (i.e. INCLEN, OXFAM, International Center for Research in Women), and many other collaborating universities.

National Support:
Examples of support to IPRC include CDC, USAID, NIOSH, NIH, State of North Carolina and STIPDA.

IPRC publishes an annual report yearly that contains a complete listing of our projects for the previous year. There is also a highlights report which reviews major accomplishments. IPRC has published hundreds of manuscripts in peer reviewed publications. A list of publications that have come from IPRC can be found at:
http://www.iprc.unc.edu/publications.shtml

10) The Centre reports on their Safe Community activities and research efforts.
Publications:
Information material:

These materials will be produced in collaboration with the Karolisnka Institutet as the centre progresses in developing evaluation strategies through the Safe Communities Network.