STIPDA Publications

STIPDA publications are available for full download to STIPDA members only. Click the links below to download executive summaries and introductions of STIPDA publications. To order hardcopies of STIPDA publications, download the Publications Order Form or contact the STIPDA office at (770) 690-9000. 

Smart Growth & Injury Prevention Roundtable Summary Report

In July 2009, STIPDA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) convened a group of twenty-six subject matter experts, stakeholders, and state and national leaders to discuss their perspectives and experiences with developing and implementing Smart Growth initiatives.  The purpose of this one-day meeting was two-fold: (1) To identify ways in which transportation and land-use planners can work effectively with public health professionals to make injury and violence prevention a priority in planning and decision-making; and (2) To determine ways in which public health professionals – especially those working in injury and violence prevention – can better engage in Smart Growth efforts in their states and communities. This report summarizes presentations that set the stage for the roundtable, ideas and issues raised during group discussions, and recommendations for next steps.  Click here to download a one-page background of the report.
 

Issue Brief:  Effective Transportation Policies Require Injury Prevention Strategies

To ensure that injury and violence prevention professionals have a voice in the ongoing discussions of transportation policy, STIPDA has developed an issue brief that illustrates the importance of making injury prevention a priority in the development of transportation policies.

Using information from research and examples from various U.S. communities, the STIPDA issue brief:

• Highlights the societal cost of traffic-related fatalities;
• Describes the relationship between injury prevention, chronic disease, active transportation, and Smart Growth;
• Provides examples of model policies and programs; and
• Emphasizes the importance of collaboration to further the mutual goals of all professionals working in public health and safety.

Click here to download the first page of the Issue Brief.


Injury & Violence Prevention are Essential to U.S. Health Reform

Investments in prevention and public health can result in siginifcant imporvements in health status by helping to reduce disabilities, premature deaths in children and younger adults, and costs.  Through this white paper, STIPDA encourages Congress and the Presidential Administration to adopt comprehensive health reform proposals that include the preventio of injuries and violence while controlling costs.
Click here to download the first page of the white paper.


Public Health-Led Safe Routes to School Programs:  Experiences from Six Health Departments, 2009

Public health professionals have an important role to play in Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs. In fact, in many communities across the U.S., public health is already a strong partner in state and local SRTS programs. This report was created to build upon this momentum and help public health professionals expand their role, become actively engaged in, and possibly lead SRTS initiatives at state or local levels.

While this report shares some common information with the national Safe Routes to School Guide, its focus is unique. This report compiles the experiences from six health departments in diverse settings among five states that were awarded one-year mini-grants to engage the public health community in SRTS programs. The mini-grants were funded through a cooperative agreement between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association (STIPDA).  Click here to download the Executive Summary.


STIPDA 2007 State of the States Report 

The STIPDA 2007 State of the States Report provides an update of comprehensive national level data on the status of state injury and violence prevention programs. This report is a follow up to the landmark 2005 State of the States Survey – the association’s premiere assessment of capacity among state injury and violence prevention programs in the United States. The report builds on the 2005 baseline survey for measuring changes in state injury and violence prevention programs over time. This 2007 report contains information from all 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC), while the 2005 report contained information from only 48 states and DC. The updated report reflects achievements of these programs to date and gives direction for future improvement and growth. The survey was administered in the first half of 2008 to collect data on the status of programs in 2007. The contents of the report are organized around each of the five core components identified by STIPDA as essential elements of a comprehensive state health department injury and violence prevention program. They are: build a solid infrastructure for injury and violence prevention; collect and analyze injury and violence data; design, implement and evaluate programs; provide technical support and training; and, affect public policy.  Click here to download the Executive Summary.


Assessing an Expanded Definition for Injuries in Hospital Discharge Data Systems (ISW6), 2008

This ISW report focuses on determining the impact of expanding the STIPDA 2003 definition for hospital discharge data to match the newly recommended definition to be used with emergency department data.  The focus of the analysis was to determine if the predictive value of the additional cases identified by the expanded injury case definition warranted their inclusion. The study found that: (1) the positive predictive value of cases with an external cause-of-injury code which had an injury diagnostic code located in any of the non-primary field positions was 7.3% and (2) the positive predictive value of cases with an external cause-of-injury code which had no injury diagnostic code listed anywhere on the record was 8.0%. Based on these study findings, the Workgroup concluded the current definition (ISW3) of a first-listed injury diagnosis based on the Barell matrix definition should not be expanded in hospital discharge data.  Click here to download the report.

Strategies for Sustaining State Injury and Violence Prevention Programs, 2008

The 1980s and 1990s saw unprecedented and much needed growth in the recognition of injury and violence as public health problems, as well as an expansion in the number and expansion of the capacity of state injury and violence prevention programs (IVPPs). In more recent years, state IVPPs have faced budget cuts, reorganizations and dwindling support as state budgets shrunk and public health resources were diverted to address bioterrorism.  Many state injury and violence prevention programs (IVPPs) strive to maintain and increase resources to support program efforts. In order to assess how state IVPPs attempt to sustain and grow these programs – and the challenges they face in these efforts – telephone interviews were conducted with state IVPP directors and other program staff members in a sample of states in 2005.  Discussions with respondents focused on sustainability challenges, factors that contribute to a loss of resources, successful strategies used to sustain and expand state IVPPs, and communication access and restrictions of state IVPPs to key audiences such as policy makers and the media.  Download the Executive Summary.

Preventing Youth Suicide in Rural America:  Recommendations to States, 2008

Between 1994 and 2004, youth suicide rates in the United States declined 23 percent — from a high of 9.36 suicides per 100,000 youth to 7.17 in 2004.  However, the declines are not evenly distributed. In 15 states, youth suicide rates remain as high as or even higher than the 20-year peak of 9.36 suicides per 100,000. Western and mountain states consistently have higher suicide rates than the rest of the country, and all of the states with the highest suicide rates have many counties that would meet most definitions of “rural” — that is, with very low population density and residents living in relatively small communities, separated by vast landscapes. Small rural communities may be better prepared to launch prevention efforts because their social and economic infrastructures are well integrated and community members are linked to one another in ways that may be less common in urban areas. However, these same strengths can turn into barriers when small communities lack the resources, access to care, and privacy or anonymity that larger communities may offer.  This report presents recommendations that approach youth suicide prevention through the lens of America’s rural communities, so that both the strengths and limitations of rural settings can be taken into account to design and implement more effective prevention strategies.  Download the Introduction.

Pedestrian Injury Risk Surveillance Workgroup Report, 2007

The emphasis in today’s world on increased physical activity and programs like Safe Routes to School and Smart Growth has created a consistent message to encourage more walking. Because of this, it is important to improve the ability of state and local officials to accurately measure pedestrian exposure to better assess the extent of pedestrian problems. This information is essential for laying the groundwork for implementing and evaluating pedestrian safety programs. For this reason, the State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association (STIPDA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sponsored a one-day meeting on June 5, 2007, in Washington, D.C., that convened injury prevention, surveillance, and transportation professionals to discuss the topic of pedestrian injury risk surveillance. This pedestrian injury risk surveillance workgroup report summarizes the discussions that took place at the meeting.  Download the Executive Summary.

Consensus Recommendations for Injury Surveillance in State Health Departments (ISW5), 2007

This report provides the current recommendations for injury surveillance in state health departments.  Surveillance is essential in the design, implementation and evaluation of injury prevention efforts at the state and local level. In the report, the Workgroup recommends that the 14 injuries and injury risk factors and the 11 data sets recommended in the 1999 document continue to be the core data collected by states. The Workgroup also made 17 recommendations for injury surveillance in state health departments.  These recommendations are presented in four categories: improving coding of injury surveillance data, improving state injury surveillance capacity, new challenges in injury surveillance, and future challenges in injury surveillance. Download the Executive Summary.

National Violent Death Reporting System: Lessons Learned from 17 States, 2002-2006

In 2006, STIPDA, through its cooperative agreement with CDC, conducted telephone interviews with National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) program staff in the 17 NVDRS-funded states for the purpose of gathering detailed information about states' experiences applying for, implementing and evaluating the NVDRS. This report compiles their lessons learned and strategies for improvement. The report is intended to benefit states planning to apply for an NVDRS cooperative agreement - as well as those in the first year or two of implementation - by demonstrating how to smooth and accelerate the application, the set up and the implementation of the NVDRS in a state, and avoid repeating common dilemmas in these processes. Download the Executive Summary.

Making a Difference: State Injury and Violence Prevention Programs

Making a Difference: State Injury and Violence Prevention Programs contains one prevention and impact example for each state; collectively the examples illustrate the variety of issues faced by state health departments in preventing injury and violence, and show the equally multi-faceted responses that state programs have to this major public health problem. Examples in this document demonstrate what is already being achieved in the states. The state activities described in this book make it clear: state injury and violence prevention programs save lives and money. Download the Executive Summary. 
 

STIPDA 2005 State of the States Highlights Report

The STIPDA 2005 State of the States Survey: Highlights Report presents major findings from STIPDA’s inaugural assessment of capacity among state injury and violence prevention programs in the U.S. The survey was administered in the first half of 2006 to collect data on the status of programs in 2005. A total of 48 states and the District of Columbia participated in the survey. STIPDA plans to conduct this survey on a biannual basis to develop a comprehensive picture over time of the status of the nation’s state health department injury and violence prevention programs. The contents of this report are organized around each of the five core components identified by STIPDA as essential elements of a comprehensive state health department injury and violence prevention program. They are: build a solid infrastructure for injury and violence prevention; collect and analyze injury and violence data; design, implement and evaluate programs; provide technical support and training; and, affect public policy. Download the Executive Summary. 

Consensus Recommendations on Falls and Fall-Related Injuries

The Consensus Recommendations for Surveillance of Falls and Fall-Related Injuries is the latest in a series of guidelines issued by a national, collaborative workgroup to improve standardization in the collection of injury data. This report was prepared by the Injury Surveillance Workgroup on Falls (known as ISW4), which examined over twenty healthcare and related data sources that can be used to monitor falls and associated injuries in national, state and local jurisdictional levels. Download the Executive Summary. 

Strategies to Improve Non-fatal Suicide Attempt Surveillance: Recommendations from an Expert Roundtable

In their review of current public health surveillance activities, roundtable experts noted the limitations of current systems. One over-arching problem is the lack of infrastructure. The experts expressed great concern about the lack of resources and infrastructure within state and local health departments to conduct surveillance, conduct epidemiologic analysis and disseminate data. Five states do not have systems to collect hospital discharge data, while twenty-five states lack hospital emergency department data systems. Download the Executive Summary. 
 

Safe States, 2003 Edition

This document explains how state health department injury prevention programs apply the public health model every day, achieving results that reduce injuries and save tens of thousands of lives. This is the challenge facing professionals in the fields of public health and injury prevention – to understand the causes of injury and disability, to take actions that prevent these consequences, and to extend the benefits of prevention not just to individuals but to entire communities and populations.  This revised version of Safe States updates the earlier version published in 1997. The Core Components have changed slightly, but the underlying message remains the same: with adequate support from their parent agencies, legislators, and many stakeholders, state injury prevention programs are poised to dramatically affect the burden of injury across the country. Download the Executive Summary. 
 

Consensus Recommendations for Using Hospital Discharge Data for Injury Surveillance

The ultimate goal of these recommendations is to improve state injury surveillance to support injury prevention programs and policies. By helping to standardize injury surveillance at the state level, the Workgroup also hopes to enable further collaboration between state injury prevention programs as well as integration of injury prevention within traditional public health activities. To that end, this report recommends a minimum set of state surveillance standards for hospital discharge data. Download the Executive Summary. 
 

State Injury Indicators Report, 2nd Edition

The CDC, CSTE, and STIPDA are pleased to bring you the second edition of the State Injury Indicators Surveillance Report. The data -- provided by state health departments voluntarily participating in the surveillance effort -- represent an important step toward routine surveillance and reporting of injury indicators in all states. The indicators were calculated by using state-level data from death certificates, hospital discharge records, and data from several surveillance systems. Download the Executive Summary.