The Center for Injury Research and Prevention: CIRP Newsletter

Issue No. 7, August 2008

Team Up for National Teen Driver Safety Week October 19-25, 2008

The Young Driver Research Initiative (YDRI) has been conducting formative research to develop unique tools to help teens, parents, schools, and youth-serving organizations address the deadly combination of new teen drivers and peer passengers. Already more than 1,100 teen driver stakeholders and 765 teens have contributed their wisdom and experience to help us better understand what communities need to implement successful teen driver safety campaigns.

Early tools to recruit students and partners to help with local campaigns are available at http://www.chop.edu/ntdsw. The complete set of download-ready tools, courtesy of CHOP and State Farm, will be available on September 10, giving youth-led and youth-serving groups six weeks to plan campaigns in their communities.

Be sure to sign up for a train-the-trainer Webinar, hosted by the Driver Education and Training Association (DETA), to be held on September 10 at 3 p.m. EST. During this Webinar, we will explain our formative research results and how to get the most out of the toolkit. To receive an e-mailed link to sign up for the Webinar, contact Karen Holm at holmk@email.chop.edu. While we will be introducing campaign-specific URLs for National Teen Driver Safety Week, organizers can always link to this information via www.chop.edu/ntdsw.

AIAM Sponsors Leading Child Safety Initiative

The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (AIAM) has generously sponsored this year’s Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS) Fact and Trend Report, the fourth in a series providing current data about children involved in U.S. motor vehicle crashes and the injuries suffered in these crashes. This year’s report will be published in September 2008 and available then at http://stokes.chop.edu/programs/injury/educational_advocacy/reports.php. Look for information about trends over the course of the study, such as changes in the type of restraints used by children, as well as facts about lower anchors and tether use for children (LATCH). 

The world’s largest study of children in crashes, PCPS was a research partnership between The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and State Farm Insurance Companies®. As of December 31, 2007, more than 875,000 children involved in 600,000 crashes reported to State Farm had participated in the study. State Farm concluded its subject enrollment for the child crash surveillance system on November 30, 2007.

The Injury Center continues to analyze the PCPS data, which will provide important information to guide child passenger safety activities for several years. 

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with AIAM and are grateful for the Association’s commitment to help us continue child occupant surveillance efforts. Children are not small adults. They have unique safety needs that cannot be determined from adult data,” says Dennis Durbin, MD, MSCE, co-scientific director of the Center. “Without the ability to monitor children’s injuries in real world crashes, the traffic safety community would lose its ability to monitor the effects of emerging vehicle and restraint technologies on children’s safety.”

Evidence-Based Perspective on Teen Driving

Flaura Winston, MD, PhD, co-scientific director of the Injury Center and a principal investigator of the Young Driver Research Initiative, offered advice to parents of teen drivers in the July 2008 issue of Reader's Digest. She also weighed in on "performance" teen driver training in the New York Times.

Three More States Adopt Comprehensive GDL Laws

Connecticut, Arizona, and Minnesota are the latest states to adopt more comprehensive graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws to protect teen drivers. Although nearly all states have some components of GDL laws in place, many are not optimal. Because teens are 20 times more likely to crash when they move from supervised driving to driving alone, GDL laws are designed to reduce novice drivers’ exposure to higher risk situations such as nighttime driving and teen passengers until they have acquired more experience under less risky conditions. These laws also require more hours of supervised practice driving before obtaining a license. Research has established that these components of GDL reduce teen crash fatalities.  

"Legislators working to enhance the graduated driver licensing system in their states should feel confident that scientific data supports the components of the GDL system," says Suzanne Hill, the Injury Center’s director of Outreach and Advocacy. "Comprehensive GDL laws protect not only teen drivers, but also the rest of the community with whom they share public roads. The tremendous emotional and financial costs related to a fatal teen driver crash extend beyond that teen’s family.” Read more about GDL.

CHOP Women's Committee Promotes Our Research

The Women’s Committee of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has donated $50,000 to further Injury Center research on preventing traumatic stress in children after an injury. Center researchers, under the direction of Nancy Kassam-Adams, PhD, are working with injured children and their families to develop effective screening tools and interventions that can be integrated into hospital trauma care. They are creating a state-of-the-art interactive website that will provide parents with easy access to credible information, tips, and practical tools to help support their injured children’s emotional recovery.

Caraballo-Perez Named an INSIGHT Fellow

Valerie Caraballo-Perez, RN, MSN, BS, a clinical investigator at the Center, recently graduated from CHOP’s first INSIGHTS forum. As an INSIGHT Fellow, she was one of 29 CHOP employees selected for an intensive 10-month Minority Leadership Development program. By seeking continued growth and education, Caraballo-Perez represents the mission of CHOP and the Center for Injury Research and Prevention.

Recent Presentations from the Injury Center

  • Hill, Suzanne. Gearing Up for National Teen Driver Safety Week 2008.Webinar presented to Driver Education Training Association (DETA) members. Philadelphia, PA. July 30, 2008.
  • Holm, Karen. Public Health Movements, Driver Education, and National Teen Driver Safety Week 2008. Driver Education Training Association (DETA) Annual State Safety Administrators Meeting. Fort Worth, Texas. July 25, 2008.
  • Holm, Karen. Young Driver Research Initiatives/National Teen Driver Safety Week. 52nd Annual American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association (ADTSEA). Fort Worth, Texas. July 29, 2008.
  • Winston F. CChIPS: Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies. Webinar presented to the University of Pittsburgh Center for Injury Research and Control. Pittsburgh, PA. April 18, 2008.
  • Winston F. (Invited Expert Panelist). Young Driver Behavior Panel Meeting. Sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Bethesda, MD. May 6, 2008.
  • Winston F. (Invited Expert Panelist). NHTSA In-Vehicle Technology Workshop. Washington, DC. May 15, 2008.
  • Winston F, Kassam-Adams N, Marks A, Kosher K. Evidence-Based Secondary Prevention of Traumatic Stress: Practical Tools to Help Parents Help Their Children. Poster presented at the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Grantees Meeting. Bethesda, MD. June 2008.

Research Sponsors Wanted

Our center is performing cutting-edge research on injury prevention in children. Doctors and researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention partner with industry and academia to determine ways to prevent injuries and to effectively cope when injuries do occur. If you are interested in sponsoring our research, please call Karen Matthews, the Center's administrative director, at 215-590-3118.

Support Our Center

The dedicated doctors, researchers, and outreach professionals at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at CHOP are fighting to save the lives of children of all ages. But we need your help. To make an on-line donation, please visit The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation Donation Page and select “Center for Injury Research and Prevention” in the drop-down menu. You also may telephone the CHOP Foundation at 267-426-6500. For more information on our research and programs, please visit www.chop.edu/injury.

Focus On:
Carole Treston, RN, MPH

Carole Treston, RN, MPH

Since 2006 Carole Treston has been the Project Director for the Young Driver Research Initiative (YDRI) at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at CHOP. She has devoted her professional life to improving the lives of children, teens, and families through clinical research and the translation of research findings into care and systems of care delivery.

Formerly the Director of the Operations Center for the Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Executive Director of the Children’s Hope Foundation, Treston has significant research, operations and project management experience. Also a Registered Nurse, she held various clinical roles at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children for 15 years, an opportunity that provided insight into the experiences and challenges of children, teens, and families.

As YDRI Project Director, Treston manages a 40-member project team and multimillion dollar annual budget to create an effective, evidence-based program of interventions to improve teen driver safety. In partnership with State Farm Insurance Companies®, Center researchers are identifying specific knowledge gaps in the science of teen driving and developing evidence-based approaches to reduce the high number of crashes, the leading cause of teen injury, disability, and death in the U.S.

To prepare for this groundbreaking program rollout, Treston oversees her team’s work with parents, teens, schools, community organizations, industry and the media. “What sets our project apart is the multidisciplinary research and science that informs and provides credibility to the outreach and advocacy needed to create real social and behavioral change. The Young Driver team is committed to achieving the goal of dramatically reducing the number and severity of teen crashes in this country,” says Treston.

“In 2006, 5,156 teens died in the U.S. from crashes – that’s roughly equal to 13 jumbo jet crashes. Think about that for a moment. That number doesn’t account for the serious injuries, sometimes permanent in those that survive. Most of these car crashes are preventable, and that fact is not yet common knowledge,” says Treston. “We need to build awareness of teen driver safety and skill building in order to help parents, teens, schools, and youth-serving organizations work together to create a population of safe drivers and responsible passengers. Personally, I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to lose a teen in a crash. If my small contribution to this work helps just one family be better informed and prepared so that crash is prevented, I’m happy.”

Joan Ozanne-Smith


The Center recently welcomed Joan Ozanne-Smith, MBBS, MPH, FAFPHM, a professor and principal research fellow at Monash University’s Accident Research Centre (MUARC) in Victoria, Australia. She shared highlights of the research being conducted by MUARC, our Center, and the Chinese Centers for Disease Control investigating parents' attitudes and beliefs about booster seats and effective ways to promote child passenger safety in China. Ozanne-Smith is pictured here in front of the Liberty Bell, Philadelphia’s number one sight to see.

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