213187 Launching a statewide senior fall prevention program

Monday, November 9, 2009: 3:30 PM

Ilene F. Silver, MPH , Injury & Violence Prevention Program, Washington State Department of Health, Olympia, WA
The speaker will discuss development of a statewide senior fall prevention program in Washington State, from identifying the magnitude of the problem to launching a multi-faceted statewide program. The presentation will highlight innovative partnerships at the state and local level; generating management and legislative support, and coping with the current fiscal crisis. Included in the presentation will be the importance of multiple sectors “owning” the issue, and taking initiative within their own contexts to work on fall prevention. Finally, the presenter will describe a public domain senior fall prevention exercise and education program (Stay Active & Independent for Life) developed and widely disseminated in the state.

Learning Objectives:
Identify approaches to using data to draw attention and action to older adult falls Identify key partnerships to leverage community resources for fall prevention

Keywords: Injury, Partnerships

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been engaged in the issue of senior fall prevention since 1998, when I first identified the magnitude of the issue in Washington, and that there were four times as many hospitalizations for falls among adults 65 and older than the number of hospitalizations -for all ages combined-to motor vehicle occupants. In 2000, I wrote a segment of a CDC Injury Surveillance grant to fund an injury epidemiologist to develop a publication that examined the data in Washington State, and the national research on effective interventions. This was published in 2002, under the title: Falls Among Older Adults: Strategies for Prevention. In 2002 I wrote a proposal to CDC for a targeted injury prevention grant for senior fall prevention. This was funded through 2006, during which we conducted a randomized controlled trial of a community based fall prevention program (Shumwway-Cook A, Silver IF, LeMier M, York S, Cummings P, Koepsell TD. Effectiveness of a community-based multifactorial intervention on falls and fall risk factors in community-living older adults: a randomized controlled trial. J Gerontol Med Sci. 2007; 62A: 1420-1427.) I was the Principal Investigator of the grant. Since 2006, I have developed a statewide fall prevention program, in partnership with key community partners, including the State Unit on Aging in the Aging and Disability Services Administration, and a public private partnership with the North West Orthopaedic Institute, as well as numerous other organizations. In 2008 we received $400,000 from the Washington State legislature for statewide fall prevention activities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Successes in Public Health Programs and Policy: Older Adult Falls as an Injury Prevention Model
See more of: APHA