Dear SAVIR Members:

As the seasons migrate from fall to winter, here in New England the air has chilled and the leaves have fallen. It is also a time of transition for SAVIR. This month marks the end of my term as President and this will be my last member update. It has been an exciting and rewarding year for me and one of many successes for SAVIR. Over this last year we have successfully completed two contracts we established with NCIPC and began work on two new contracts. One builds on our previous work and develops several roundtable discussions at SAVIR’s conference next April related to the CDC research agenda and a second will develop metrics for injury research centers. We have established task force that has been actively working towards having a congressional briefing next spring to advance funding for injury and violence research. Our Conference Committee has spent considerable time and effort developing an outstanding schedule for the 2011 conference. The Science Committee created a mechanism for rigorous and fair review of submitted conference abstracts and worked with the Advocacy Committee to develop facts sheets highlighting key injury research findings. Our Training Committee organized four webinars in the past years and partnered with the Council of Centers to develop a mechanism for hosting future webinars. The Membership Committee has collaborated with other partners in our field to develop new mechanisms for recruiting members to SAVIR, especially student members. As you can see, it has been a most productive year for SAVIR.

New Leadership

Andrea Gielen, ScD, ScM, Director of The Center for Injury Research and Policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health takes over the SAVIR presidency this month and Richard Satin, MD Professor at Medical College of Georgia was recently elected SAVIR President-elect. With this strong leadership team in place, SAVIR is well positioned for the future. Also new Board of Director members, Deb Houry, MD, MPH and Billie Weiss, MPH began their term on the SAVIR Board of Directors. They will lend their talent and expertise in leading SAVIR foward. I had the privilege of having an outstanding group of individuals on the Board during my term this past year. This group included Dawn Comstock, PhD and Cori Peek-Asa, PhD who were insightful and productive board members and will end their board terms this month. I and all of SAVIR thank them for the efforts.

Year End Activities

As the holiday season starts remember that if you will do any online shopping at Amazon.com to access their website through the SAVIR link https://www.savirweb.org/content/index.php?pid=103

SAVIR gets a small donation from Amazon for each purchased made through this link. Also, as we all consider our year end donations consider SAVIR. You tax deductable donation can be done online at the SAVIR website at https://www.savirweb.org/ondeposit/udonation.php

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