From every corner of the nation, health advocates came together in April to celebrate National Public Health Week. At community events, campus forums and town halls, the theme “Safety is No Accident: Live Injury-Free” took center stage.
Organized by APHA, the 2011 celebration of National Public Health Week brought health departments, organizations, students and community leaders together to spread the word that injuries are not “accidents,” and can be prevented through steps as simple as wearing seatbelts, properly installing and using child safety seats, wearing helmets and storing cleaning supplies in locked cabinets. From neighborhood events to campus forums to health fairs, the annual observance raised Americans’ awareness of injury prevention and a range of other important public health issues. To help supporters spread their health messages, the April 4–10 celebration featured free materials, a website, blog and Twitter.
A student from the University of Maine School of Nursing shows a resident at an adult rehabilitation facility how to safely exercise during National Public Health Week.
“The public health community has made remarkable achievements in injury prevention and safety within the past few decades, but there is still work to be done to limit the devastating impact — measured in lives lost and health care dollars spent — that injuries and violence have on all communities,” said Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), executive director of APHA. “National Public Health Week brought opportunities to raise awareness of this growing public health concern and engage community members to find long-term solutions.”
A Florida International University student supports pedestrian safety.
This year, APHA took the National Public Health Week theme on the road. From Baltimore, Md., to Coral-ville, Iowa, to Montpelier, Vt., and places in between, the Injury Prevention Road Tour took Benjamin and APHA President Linda Rae Murray, MD, MPH, to eight communities across the country to share important injury and violence prevention information. The road tour kicked off April 4 with a forum at Johns Hopkins University and a tour of the university’s mobile safety center — a 40-foot vehicle that visits Baltimore neighborhoods to teach parents and caregivers about injury prevention.
The University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center in Coralville, Iowa, held a national meeting in April. The event was one of the stops on APHA’s Injury Prevention Road Tour.
Road tour highlights included an April 5 conference in Flint, Mich., during which Murray discussed youth violence prevention and its relationship to health disparities. On April 8, Benjamin traveled to the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health to participate in a dynamic panel discussion on preventing youth violence and bullying. Many local media representatives and dozens of students attended the event, which featured a presentation by CeaseFire, a Chicago program that works to reduce shootings and killings.
The audience engages with speakers at a National Public Health Week event held at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Injury Research and Policy in Baltimore on April 4.
Photo courtesy David Fouse, APHA
“In a time when 12 workers die on the job each day and thousands of people are killed or injured by other injuries on our highways and in our homes, it is critical that we adopt policies and programs to prevent these injuries,” Murray told The Nation’s Health. “In my travels across the country, I was impressed by how communities were rising to the challenge of making this an injury-free nation.”
To engage even more supporters, APHA joined with CDC to host a live Twitter chat on injury and violence prevention. Using Twitter hashtag #NPHW, 230 users exchanged close to 600 tweets during the chat, which was streamed on the National Public Health Week website.
Besides Twitter, event partners employed numerous social media tools to share National Public Health Week information, including blogging and Facebook. In addition, an editorial co-authored by APHA’s Benjamin that was published on the website of the Hill garnered extensive interest.
On Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., introduced a Senate resolution supporting National Public Health Week. Recognizing that injuries and associated costs are preventable, Udall urged members of the Senate to strengthen the nation’s public health system and recognize the role of public health “in promoting safety, preventing injury and improving the health of people in the United States.”
In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., introduced a resolution recognizing National Public Health Week and the importance of community involvement in preventing injuries and promoting good health.
“National Public Health Week offers a reminder to all of our nation’s families that many of the choices we make in our daily lives directly determine how long we live and how well we live,” according to Roybal-Allard.
Many APHA members sent advocacy messages urging their representatives to cosponsor the resolutions. Further greasing the wheels of Congress, APHA members and partners were encouraged to send other messages to their legislators during the week, urging them to include strong public health provisions in a range of measures, including legislation that would reauthorize a federal transportation law.
Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill was also the setting of a National Public Health Week briefing sponsored by APHA. Linda Degutis, DrPH, MSN, director of CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and an APHA member, keynoted the briefing. CDC was a sponsor of National Public Health Week 2011.
“People often talk about ‘accidents,’ which implies that injuries are random events and that we can’t control them…but they are really preventable, they are controllable and they are far less random than we might think,” Degutis said. “In fact, they are almost as predictable as things like cancer, heart disease and strokes.”
Support for National Public Health Week poured in from all levels of government. On April 7, President Barack Obama sent a National Public Health Week message to APHA applauding the initiative’s role in laying the foundation for a “brighter, healthier future.”
“Protecting the safety and health of all Americans is essential to strengthening our communities and growing our nation’s economy,” Obama wrote. “By raising awareness of prevention measures, countless injuries can be avoided across our country.”
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson galvanized support for National Public Health Week by writing a blog entry and then stepping in front of a camera to make a video about the importance of the week.
“EPA is sending a clear message,” Jackson penned in her blog post. “Environmental protection is public health protection. It is family protection and community protection. It is about safeguarding people in the places where they live, work, play and learn.”
Adding muscle to the week’s many events, 170 national, state and local organizations and agencies signed on as partners, posting 242 events to APHA’s online event calendar.
For sponsoring events during National Public Health Week, APHA’s Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section awarded pizza parties to students at four lucky schools: Tufts University School of Medicine, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Loma Linda University School of Public Health and State University of New York’s University at Albany School of Public Health.
National Public Health Week 2012 will be observed April 2–8. The theme of next year’s observance will be announced during APHA’s 139th Annual Meeting, which will be held Oct. 29–Nov. 2. Check the National Public Health Week website, www.nphw.org, for updated information.
For more on National Public Health Week, visit www.nphw.org, call 202-777-2425 or email nphw{at}apha.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
