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09/26/2021

Reflections from the President

Happy fall! As students and faculty are returning to campuses we cannot help but feel both excited and anxious at the same time. Across the United States and around the globe, communities continue to battle the physical, social, emotional and economic effects of the pandemic. This includes increases in rates of injury and violence such as firearm violence, traffic fatalities and others. The need for research to inform injury and violence prevention may never be greater and our members are meeting this challenge.  

Over the summer, the SAVIR Antiracism Interest Group was lucky enough to work with an up-and-coming undergraduate student, Julia Blackwell, through a fellowship made possible by the CDC to support the development of a diverse national pool of candidates who will pursue careers in public health. One of SAVIR’s goals is to focus on teaching and mentoring the next generation of injury researchers and practitioners through promoting and improving educational opportunities in appropriate disciplines. To that end, SAVIR recognizes the importance of building a community of injury and violence prevention scientists, practitioners, and advocates who encourage and celebrate diverse voices and promote authentic engagement, equitable research and empowered participation. We are glad to have Julia as one of our newest members and colleagues and look forward to working with other students in the future.

The call for abstracts for our SAVIR 2022 Conference, “"Injury Prevention for the Ages: Advancing Violence and Injury Research Across the Lifespan" is now open. Please consider submitting your work and forward the call along to your colleagues. As we prepare for the meeting, we consider the health and safety of our members to be a top priority. We continue to monitor any changes that would affect our ability to safely host an in-person meeting. To date, we are moving forward with an in-person meeting and will make our best effort to apprise you of any changes as they come. Also, the 2024 Host Solicitation is now open – please consider hosting the 2024 SAVIR conference. This is a great opportunity to highlight the importance of injury and violence research within your institution but also show others all the great work that is being done in your home state.

Finally, National Injury Prevention Day is November 18 and SAVIR members have been busy planning activities to highlight the important research that our members are doing to address the burden of injury and violence. Please take some time to consider how you will participate on that day.

Stay safe –

Bernadette Callahan Hohl, PhD, MPH
SAVIR President

 

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