SAVIR Member Update
November 2009

Dear SAVIR Members,

I am honored and excited to take over as SAVIR President. The organization has been growing the past few years and I look forward to the challenge of maintaining that momentum. The SAVIR Board of Directors met for its annual meeting this month in Philadelphia, a few reoccurring themes arose from our discussion. I have identified three as important focus areas for the upcoming year:

• Expand our membership - as a relatively new organization we need to continue to concentrate efforts to engage members of the violence and injury research community. The board discussed several strategies to increase individual membership and the Council Center has also had a similar discussion on recruiting more center members. Over the coming year, I will work with the Membership Committee and Council of Centers to achieve these goals.
• Engage Students in the field-one of SAVIR's goals has always been: improve the teaching and mentoring of the next generation of injury researchers. I, along with the Board of Directors, will continue to seek strategies for providing opportunities for students within our organization.
• Work with external partners. SAVIR currently has a small contract with National Center for Injury Prevention and Control to assist them in disseminating the CDC Injury Research Agenda. A task force chaired by Shannon Frattaroli is leading the efforts on this project. SAVIR will seek additional similar opportunities with external partners that utilize its strength as the professional organization providing leadership in violence and injury research.

Also at our meeting this month came several changes in our organizational leadership. We warmly welcome Fred Rivera who joins the Board of Directors. Cori Peek-Asa stepped down as President after a very successful and productive year. She has been a dedicated leader for us over this past year that is reflected in SAVIR's many accomplishments during her presidency. As the Immediate Past President, she will continue her work this coming year on the Board of Directors and its Executive Committee. We also acknowledged and expressed out gratitude for two members leaving the board after several years of dedicated service. Sue Gallagher finished her Board term but will continue to Co-Chair the SAVIR Advocacy and Public Policy Committee. Charlie Branas who has provided exceptional commitment to our organization through his time on the Board, as President-elect, President, and Immediate Past President is rotating off the Board but will continue to be involved in the organization.

SAVIR is co hosting with STIPDA and our center member the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center a series of webinars with the next ones schedule for December 16 and January 26. An announcement flyer of these sessions is available on our website SAVIR Webinars http://www.savirweb.org/assets/240_webinarseriesoninjuryeval.pdf

Injury Evaluation: What it looks like on the ground
Side by side examples of two injury evaluations and lessons learned
Thursday December 10, 2009 2-3:30pm Eastern Time

Presented by:
Carri Casteel PhD, MPH, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Epidemiology; Injury Prevention Research Center

Beth Ebel MD MSc MPH, University of Washington School of Medicine; Director Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center

Injury Evaluation: What to do when it gets complicated
Thinking about Randomized Control Trials
Tuesday January 26, 2010 2-3:30pm Eastern Time

Presented by:
Harry Shannon PhD, MSc, McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics

The Italian Journal of Public Health is preparing a special issue on "Injury and Violence" . IJPH seeks original research papers, systematic reviews, opinion pieces and papers on the topic of injury (intentional and unintentional), disability and violence. Papers on evidence based prevention efforts in injury and violence prevention would be highly encouraged.

More details about the journal and editorial board can be found on their website www.ijph.it The deadline for submission of full paper is 20th January 2010. For manuscript preparation, please go to http://www.ijph.it/#notice and click 'Notice to contributors' on left side of the screen where you will see all the guidelines for submission.

A few additional items that I wish to express to all: the holiday season is arriving and remember that as do your online shopping at Amazon.com, going through the link on SAVIR's website SAVIR Amazon store http://www.savirweb.org/content/index.php?pid=103 rewards us with a small donation from Amazon for each of your orders. Also, as you consider your end of year giving I ask that you remember SAVIR. You can make your tax-deductible donation online at SAVIR Donation https://www.savirweb.org/ondeposit/donation.php

Our complete list of accomplishments over the past year is available on our website http://www.savirweb.org/assets/248_savir2009accomplishment.pdf and we hope to have equally impressive list for the coming year. If you have not already, please consider increasing your activity within SAVIR over the coming year by joining one our committees. As always, contact us if the organization can assist you at anytime.

Best Regards,

Michael J. Mello, MD, MPH
President, Society for Advance of Violence and Injury Research
Injury Prevention Center at Rhode Island Hospital
Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, RI, USA