Really interesting paper published by Bachhuber and colleagues recently in JAMA Internal Medicine looking at the association between medical marijuana laws and opioid analgesic overdose in US states from 1999-2010. http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1898878 They found an association between states with medical marijuana laws and decreased fatal opioid overdoses. To be exact, a 24.8% decrease in fatal opioid […]
Latest articles
Children and injury prevention
I read an interesting article recently, in which the authors explored the burden of sport- and exercise-related injury in children aged 14 years or less. The frequency, years lived with disability, bed-days, and direct hospital costs were explored for non-fatally injured, hospital-treated children treated in a private or public hospital in Victoria (Australia) over a seven-year period. Finch, […]
Engagement appears the key
Regular readers of the Injury Prevention blog will be well aware with my obsession with engagement. Traditionally, injury prevention – such as in road safety – focuses on the “Three E’s” of Engineering, Enforcement, and Education. I think that Engagement is the fourth, often-forgotten, essential “E”, albeit it can be very tricky to actually manage, and manage effectively. I […]
Texting laws reduce traffic fatalities
Quick post here to highlight a nice study authored by Alva O. Ferdinand and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham that examined the impact of state texting laws on motor vehicle fatalities in the United States. I came away with two important findings from the study. First, primary enforcement (which means that officers […]
Domestic violence
Blog readers are well aware of my passion for conferences – the immeasurable benefits that can arise from presenting, networking, developing and maintaining collaborations, and sparking ideas, just to name a few. So today I won’t talk at length about the wonderful experiences I had last month as I spoke at a conference in Paris, […]
Gangs, Violence, and a Flood of Migrant Children
There has been a tremendous amount of media attention in the United States on what is described as a flood of migrant children illegally crossing the US-Mexico border. Statistics referenced in a recent NPR article estimate that more than 50,000 unaccompanied children have been detained by US border patrol in the last eight months. http://www.npr.org/2014/06/20/323657817/from-a-stream-to-a-flood-migrant-kids-overwhelm-u-s-border-agents […]
Hot ash burns – are we making progress?
One of the best parts of being able to blog for Injury Prevention is being able to reflect upon my own experiences (personal and professional) as I learn about the research of other injury prevention researchers. I suppose today’s blog has left me feeling a little frustrated, however, that maybe we aren’t making as much […]
The Benefits of Aggressive Play
Is aggressive play or roughhousing something that models and facilitates violent behavior or are there benefits and if so, what are those benefits? A recently story on NPR summarizes some of the research that highlights the potential benefits of roughhousing , even forms that involve pretend violence. http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/06/25/325218402/what-kids-can-learn-from-a-water-balloon-fight I found the reported potential benefits of […]
Data linkage: overcoming a potential injury prevention obstacle
I am not an expert in data linkage, nor am I up to the challenge of linking various data sources, however I am acutely aware that NOT linking data is a huge obstacle for injury prevention. Without the base information which is provided by data linkage, we (and by we I am referring not only to my […]
Injury prevention and the musician
It doesn’t seem right that something so beautiful as music can cause terrible, enduring pain for the creator. Sharing my home with an aspiring concert pianist (a busy young lady who has also spent years studying violin, harp, and classical voice) means I have seen first hand just what can happen through overuse, incorrect practice, or simply […]