Research In Action
Research In Action
We at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have hit a momentous milestone. We have been generating meaningful, impactful child injury prevention research for more than 25 years.
Our longevity may be due to our willingness to evolve to meet the needs of a dynamic safety environment for children and youth, as well as tap into the expertise and interests of the dedicated and talented scientists, clinicians and engineers who call CIRP their research home.
Over the past year, I have served on a strategic planning committee to help map out a future for CIRP to ensure that its vision and mission continues to drive us forward, conducting solution-driven research that saves lives.
I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Founder and Former Scientific Director at CIRP. I’m so proud to stay on as a Senior Advisor to an exceptional group of faculty principal investigators and staff and leave the leadership in the very capable hands of Dr. Kristy Arbogast and Dr. Rachel Myers, who now serve as Director and Associate Director, respectively.
I am so very proud that the Research to Action to Impact spirit lives on in the next generations of rigorous and passionate scientists.
Below is an excerpt from this week's Cornerstone Blog, a CHOP Research Institute publication:
“Looking Back and Ahead: 25 Years of Preventing and Researching Childhood Injury”
Read the full article here.
"The world was mostly designed for adults back in 1996, and finding ways to prevent injury with evidence-based research that was specific to children was not commonplace.
“There was a sense that accidents were just a normal part of childhood,” said Kristy Arbogast, PhD, recently named Scientific Director at CHOP’s Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP).
Two CHOP physicians disagreed with that sentiment, after identifying the first child who died of an airbag injury in a motor vehicle crash. Pediatrician, engineer and public health researcher Flaura K. Winston, MD, PhD, and pediatric emergency medicine physician Dennis Durbin, MD, MSCE (now at Nationwide Children’s Hospital) wanted to bring together a team of scientists and clinicians who could raise the rigor of the research applied to the field of injury science. They went on to create CIRP as the first Center of Emphasis at CHOP Research Institute, which Dr. Arbogast joined as a bioengineer in 1997.
One of their landmark research projects partnered with State Farm Insurance and collected information on 173,000 crashes involving more than 260,000 children that fueled efforts by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, industry, and other stakeholders to advance motor vehicle safety for children, create federal policies and regulations, inform state child restraint laws, and educate families.
More than two decades later, fatalities to children in motor vehicle crashes have been cut in half. More work remains, however, as unintentional injury (including motor vehicle crashes), suicide, and homicide remain the three leading causes of death for people under age 25, together claiming nearly 33,000 lives in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Evolving CIRP Research to Meet the Need
To meet the challenges of the next decade and beyond, CIRP has evolved into an ambitious and multidisciplinary research center with a broad range of focus areas: young driver safety, violence prevention, road traffic protection, injury and rehabilitation biomechanics and engineering, concussion and brain health, traumatic stress, and transportation equity.
“Twenty years ago, CIRP’s research portfolio was virtually exclusively road traffic protection,” Dr. Arbogast said. “In 2024, our research additionally contributes important findings and recommendations to the science of young driver safety, concussion diagnosis, recovery and prevention, as well as addressing critical antecedents to future exposure to violence.”
