December 13th, 2018
Injuries and violence are among the top 10 leading causes of causes of death in the United States and among the top three for people between the ages of 1 and 44. Injuries and violence affect people of all ages and all socioeconomic groups and range from child abuse to older adult falls. While many may view injuries as inevitable or unavoidable, they are in fact predictable and preventable.
The mission of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center) is to prevent violence and injuries and reduce their consequences. We accomplish our mission through surveillance, research, and the development, implementation, and evaluation of effective interventions. Although essential to any public health strategy, non-research activities such as surveillance, program implementation, translation, and evaluation are not covered in this document. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Injury Center collaborates with partners, such as the Core Violence and Injury Prevention Program (Core-VIPP), the Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) program, and the prescription Drug Overdose Prevention for States program, to implement public health strategies for the prevention of unintentional injury and violence. Non-research activities are reflected on CDC’s Injury Center website.
Using the public health approach, the Injury Center conducts and supports research that identifies etiologic factors, develops and rigorously evaluates interventions to reduce the injury burden, and conducts research to translate science into effective programs and policies to ensure their widespread adoption. The intent of developing CDC Injury Center Research Priorities is to address strategic gaps along the public health spectrum. Identifying gaps is essential for achieving public health impact for our priority areas. For example, where evidence-based strategies exist, the Injury Center will place greater emphasis on translational research to tailor and enhance implementation of prevention efforts. In newer areas, the Injury Center may focus on identifying etiologic factors and developing intervention strategies. The new research priorities described herein highlight the Injury Center’s research goals during the next 3–5 years.
These research priorities update and replace the CDC Injury Research Agenda 2009–2018 published in January 2009.* The decision to update the research agenda to include specific Injury Center research priorities before 2018 is based on the following rationale:
- Changes in the injury and violence burden that are not reflected in the 2009–2018 research agenda* (e.g., prescription drug overdose).
- Desire to develop more targeted research priorities that focus on CDC’s public health expertise rather than address the entire field.
- Need to create more targeted research priorities that will help grow a critical mass of research for achieving impact, but still be broad enough to allow for innovation.
- Opportunity to better integrate the Injury Center’s extramural and intramural research.
- Interest in creating a more nimble agenda that will be updated every few years and can quickly respond to emerging issues.