Funded Injury Control Research Centers (ICRCs)

Overview

The University of Michigan Injury Center is a comprehensive ICRC that integrates all injury prevention across the spectrum of age groups with particular focus and expertise in motor vehicle crash, prescription drug misuse, substance abuse, concussion, falls, youth violence, child maltreatment, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and suicidal behavior. The Center is supplemented by the vast educational, research, outreach and policy resources of the University of Michigan (UM), Wayne State University (WSU) and Michigan State University (MSU), whose injury faculty and practitioners are ready to address the burden of injury in Michigan and the Great Lakes Region. The Center has more than a decade of experience in conducting injury research, outreach and translation, and educating the next generation of injury scientists and practitioners. The mission of the Center is to conduct high-quality research and training, to translate scientific discoveries into practice and policy, and to reduce injuries and violence. The proposed Center is organized around four multidisciplinary cores (Administrative, Outreach and Translation with a Policy Workgroup, Training and Education, and Research with a Statistics and Methods Section), four research projects, and an exploratory research grant program involving faculty from 14 departments at the UM, WSU, and MSU. The research grants focus on evaluation of the effectiveness of current injury prevention policies, intervention programs to impact CDC focus areas, such as: 1) Development of a prescription drug overdose intervention, 2) Development of a parent guide for supervising teen drivers, 3) Graduated drivers licensing policy evaluation, and 4) Translating proven prevention youth violence prevention programs into practice. Other activities focus on stimulating research, including statistical assistance, an exploratory grants program that has funded 15 pilot awards, and encouraging and enabling access of secondary datasets for research, such as motor vehicle crash data. The Center has ongoing focus in teaching and mentoring undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students, as well as junior faculty across disciplines, including medicine, public health, behavioral and social sciences, biostatistics, biomechanics, epidemiology, and policy. The Outreach core development of an online catalog of injury tools and programs helps practitioners (http://www.injurycenter.umich.edu/programs) translate science to action in their community. In addition, we will provide outreach, technical assistance, and consultation on translating research into practice while using the Center's social media expertise and presence to build a dynamic online community (Twitter: @UMInjuryCenter ) and active reach throughout the Great Lakes Region and nationally.