State Injury Programs' Response to the Opioid Epidemic: The Role of CDC's Core Violence and Injury Prevention Program.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Core Violence and Injury Prevention Program (Core) supports capacity of state violence and injury prevention programs to implement evidence-based interventions. Several Core-funded states prioritized prescription drug overdose (PDO) and leveraged their systems to identify and respond to the epidemic before specific PDO prevention funding was available through CDC. This article describes activities employed by Core-funded states early in the epidemic. Four case examples illustrate states' approaches within the context of their systems and partners. While Core funding is not sufficient to support a comprehensive PDO prevention program, having Core in place at the beginning of the emerging epidemic had critical implications for identifying the problem and developing systems that were later expanded as additional resources became available. Important components included staffing support to bolster programmatic and epidemiological capacity; diverse and collaborative partnerships; and use of surveillance and evidence-informed best practices to prioritize decision-making.

The Power of Academic-Practitioner Collaboration to Enhance Science and Practice Integration: Injury and Violence Prevention Case Studies.

One of the most substantial challenges facing the field of injury and violence prevention is bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and its real-world application to achieve population-level impact. Much synergy is gained when academic and practice communities collaborate; however, a number of barriers prevent better integration of science and practice. This article presents 3 examples of academic-practitioner collaborations, their approaches to working together to address injury and violence issues, and emerging indications of the impact on integrating research and practice. The examples fall along the spectrum of engagement with nonacademic partners as coinvestigators and knowledge producers. They also highlight the benefits of academic-community partnerships and the engaged scholarship model under which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Injury Control Research Centers operate to address the research-to-practice and practice-to-research gap.

Pedestrian fatalities by race/ethnicity in Arizona, 1990-1996.

PURPOSE: To explore rates of pedestrian fatalities in Arizona, and how rates and circumstances of pedestrian deaths differ by race/ethnicity, urban or rural residence, age, and gender. METHODS: Using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the National Center for Health Statistics' Multiple Cause of Death file, pedestrian fatalities in Arizona from 1990 through 1996 were classified by gender, race/ethnicity, and urban or rural residence. Age-adjusted rates were calculated and adjusted for the proportion of rural residence. Age analyses compared pedestrian fatality rates in 10-year age groups by race/ethnicity. Conditions associated with pedestrian deaths were examined, including the time and day of occurrence, alcohol involvement, and degree of pedestrian contribution to the crash. RESULTS: American Indians had rates of pedestrian deaths 6 to 13 times those of non-Hispanic whites. Elevated rates for American Indians were found in urban and rural areas, in both genders, in all age groups in men, and in five of nine age groups in women. American-Indian pedestrian death rates and relative risks (RRs) were higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Compared to non-Hispanic whites, urban Hispanic males had an elevated RR of 1.56, rural Hispanic females had an RR of 2.45, and urban African-American (AA) females had an RR of 2.33. However, significantly elevated rates, compared to non-Hispanic whites, were limited to Hispanic males aged <5 years and African-American females aged 65 to 74 years. In all race/ethnic groups, except rural Hispanics, men had higher rates than women, although American-Indian women had higher rates than non-Hispanic whites, African Americans, and Hispanic men. Rural residence accounted for 27% of the excess American-Indian pedestrian mortality. Sixty-one percent of urban, American-Indian pedestrian deaths occurred on weekends, compared to 29% among non-Hispanic whites and 46% among Hispanics. American Indians had six times the rate of alcohol-related pedestrian deaths as non-Hispanic whites in urban areas and 16 times that respective rate in rural areas. Hispanics had an alcohol- involvement RR of 1.82 in urban areas, but the RR was not elevated in rural areas. When blood alcohol was measured, the blood alcohol concentration was >0.20 g/dL in 64.4% of American Indians, 35% of Hispanics, and 29% of non-Hispanic whites. CONCLUSION: A major disparity in pedestrian fatalities exists for both American-Indian men and women in urban and rural areas. Other racial/ethnic groups have elevated pedestrian fatality rates that are gender and residence specific, and are limited to specific age groups. Much of the American-Indian excess mortality is alcohol related and associated with residence in rural areas.