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Our Research

Using a multidisciplinary approach, the Center for Injury Research and Prevention draws on a team of scientists from the fields of emergency medicine, pediatric trauma, pediatric and adolescent development, epidemiology and biostatistics, bioengineering, computational engineering, psychology, behavioral science, communications and health education.

These different points of view form the foundation of a methodology in which research into the pre-event, event, and post-event phases of injury and trauma can lead to action and ultimately make an impact on behalf of our nation's youth. This approach allows us to develop more effective interventions to reduce future injuries.

The Center's findings are published in medical journals, presented at scientific conferences, and are translated into recommendations for parents, physicians, educators, policymakers and product manufacturers —those who are best positioned to make effective change- by the Center's outreach and advocacy professionals.

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Research Topics

The Center's scientists seek to investigate all three phases of injury: pre-crash (how to prevent a crash); crash (in the event of a crash, how to prevent injuries or reduce their severity); and post-crash (how to ensure optimal recovery).

• Traffic injury prevention

  Motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death and acquired disability for children after age one. The bulk of the Center's research is devoted to mitigating these tragedies by developing improved safety designs and technologies; increasing awareness and compliance with proper restraint practices; and developing and disseminating proven effective training programs for young drivers and their parents.

• Behavioral aspects of injury

  Behavioral scientists at the Center study the pre-crash or "pre-event" behaviors that are factors for pediatric and adolescent injury and then develop interventions to increase the adoption of safe behaviors. Researchers also study the post event emotional impact of injury and trauma in order to develop screening tools and interventions to prevent long-term emotional injury.

• General Injury prevention

  Along with our research into children's injuries in motor vehicle crashes, the Center seeks to use research to prevent injuries caused by everyday hazards, from household safety to bicycle safety to skateboard injuries.

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Scientific Disciplines

• Behavioral Science

  Behavioral scientists at the Center study the pre-event behaviors that are factors for injury and then develop interventions to increase the adoption of safe behaviors. Work in this area has focused on increasing age- and size-appropriate restraint use in motor vehicles, as well as increasing safer driving behaviors among teenagers. Researchers also study the post-event emotional impact of injury and trauma in order to develop screening tools and interventions to prevent long-term emotional injury.

• Biostatistics and Epidemiology

  Epidemiology, the study of health conditions in a specific population, and biostatistics, the application of statistical methods and principles to medical problems, are at the very core of the Center's entire research enterprise. Experts in both fields inform every project the Center undertakes to identify the nature and magnitude of specific injury problems, as well as the causes and consequences of injury.

• Engineering

  Field investigation of real world crashes conducted by the Center's crash investigation team fuels biomechanics research, in which laboratory research on the mechanics of injury and the unique kinematics of children helps us to fill in gaps in quantitative data on the response of children to trauma. Computational engineers create crash reconstruction models that help us translate real world data into industry-relevant information that may be used in the design of new products that will mitigate the risk of injury.

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Research Programs and Networks

The Center serves as the umbrella organization for a number of distinct research projects, and is also a participating Center in a number of national injury research networks and consortiums.

• Young Driver Research Initiative (YDRI)

  The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, The University of Pennsylvania and State Farm Insurance Companies®, the academic/industry partnership that led the Partners for Child Passenger Safety study, convened the world's leading experts on teens, driving and teen driving in the fall of 2005 and late summer of 2006. The result was an evidence-based road map for the exploration of effective interventions to reduce teen-driver-related crash and injury risk. It is available as a special supplement to the June 2006 issue of the journal Injury Prevention called "The Science of Safe Driving Among Adolescents."

• Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS)

  This center-within-a-center is an Industry/University Co-operative Research Center established in 2005 by a grant from the National Science Foundation to create a synergistic collaboration between industry and academia to help manufacturers improve the safety of their products and to develop public education programs and safety interventions.

• National Child Occupant Special Study (NCOSS)

  The auto industry is reinventing itself for the needs of the 21st Century, emphasizing greater fuel economy and other efficiencies. In order to ensure these "green" advances do not come at the expense of child occupant safety, government experts, researchers, safety advocates and industry members must have credible, high quality data. CHOP and NHTSA recognize this need and are collaborating to develop the specifications for a sustainable system that would leverage the existing federal transportation safety infrastructure, the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS). The proposed NCOSS would use NHTSA's NASS infrastructure to identify children in crashes and apply rigorous child-focused data collection methodology to obtain in-depth crash information for children. NCOSS will serve as the platform upon which government, industry, and the auto safety research and advocacy community can continue to advance motor vehicle safety for children and youth.

• Child and Adolescent Reaction to Injury and Trauma (CARIT)

  This program is conducting pioneering research into the range of responses that children and their parents experience after pediatric injury. Researchers are developing and testing screening tools and intervention methods to promote emotional recovery for both children and parents — and creating models for integrating these tools and methods into the health care system.

• The Philadelphia Collaborative Violence Prevention Center (PCVPC)

  The Philadelphia Collaborative Violence Prevention Center (PCVPC) was established in 2006 through a cooperative agreement with The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with the goal of preventing violence and aggression in the lives of young people in West and Southwest Philadelphia.

  Through a truly collaborative relationship, PCVPC brings together academic institutions (The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Drexel University) and community-based organizations to share equally in the planning, leadership, analysis, and dissemination of research results.

• Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN)

  In 2005, the Center was awarded a five-year contract from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to serve as the only site primarily focused on pediatric occupants in the CIREN program. The mission of this multidisciplinary research affiliation of clinicians and engineers in academia, industry and government is to improve the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of motor-vehicle crash injuries, thus reducing deaths, disabilities and human and economic costs through the study of real-world cases of serious injuries sustained in car crashes. Pooling data from eight network trauma centers nationwide, CIREN provides a rich database for analysis, forming the basis for potentially life-changing tools and technologies.

• NHTSA Indefinite Quantities Contract: Building on the Findings of Partners for Child Passenger Safety

  NHTSA currently provides funding for the Center to conduct research several "Task Orders" across a wide range of research topics including: Abdominal injury to seat belt-restrained children; improving anthropomorphic test dummies (ATD) to more accurately represent the biokinetics of a human child; examining the risk of injury to center-rear seated children using lap-only or lap-shoulder belts; restraint use patterns based on vehicle model and year; effectiveness of built-in child restraint systems; and developing interventions to improve booster seat use in at-risk populations.

• Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS)

  For the past decade, Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS) served as the world's largest child-focused motor vehicle crash surveillance system and an important source of data for child passenger safety. PCPS informed new product development, test protocols and regulations, education, policy, and medical practice. Its findings are recognized worldwide.

• Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Philadelphia

  The Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Philadelphia works in the West Philadelphia community to prevent unintentional childhood injury. The coalition's grassroots-based approach focuses on topics such as: home safety, bicycle safety, pedestrian safety alternatives to and reduction of violence.