The Injury Control and Emergency Health Services (ICEHS) Section invites abstracts related to prevention and control of injuries and violence in all settings; delivery and evaluation of emergency health services; and issues related to emergency preparedness and population safety. Abstracts addressing policy, methodological advances, programs, services, translational research, epidemiology, and research and evaluation are appropriate for this section. We welcome abstracts on ALL unintentional and intentional injury topics and emergency health services and disaster preparedness topics.

 

Abstracts must be submitted via the APHA website. The exact date of February deadline for submitting abstracts to the ICEHS Section is posted on the APHA website. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and considered for presentation at the 144^th Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association. Authors will be notified of the status of their abstracts by email by early June 2016. APHA guidelines, which require that the work be original, unpublished, and not have been previously presented at a professional meeting.

• Aging
  
• Child and adolescent injuries
  
• Disaster response and emergency preparedness
  
• Emergency medical services
  
• Emerging trends in injuries
  
• Falls
  
• Global injuries
  
• Injury and emergency health data issues
  
• Innovations in injury research methods
  
• Innovative use of technology for injury research, prevention, disaster and emergency response
  
• Intervention trials
  
• Law for injury control
  
• Motor vehicle injury and road safety
  
• Occupational injuries
  
• Prevention and treatment of sport-related injury in young athletes (Proposed joint session with the Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section)
  
• Recreational and sports injuries
  
• Suicide prevention
  
• Using GIS and location analysis in injury research and prevention
  
• Violence related injuries
  

Abstracts must be structured as follows: Background/Purpose, Methods, Results/Outcomes, and Conclusions. The abstract word limit is 250 words. For a session to be eligible for Continuing Education Credit, each presenter must provide:

1. An abstract free of trade and/or commercial product names

1. At least one MEASURABLE objective (DO NOT USE “understand” or “to learn” as objectives, they are not measureable).

1. Examples of acceptable measurable action words: Explain, Demonstrate, Analyze, Formulate, Discuss, Compare, Differentiate, Describe, Name, Assess, Evaluate, Identify, Design, Define or List.

1. Learning objectives and author qualifications are not included in the word count. Please include learning objectives; abstracts missing learning objectives will receive a lower priority accept score and risk being rejected.

1. A signed Conflict of Interest (Disclosure) form with a relevant qualifications statement.

1. An acceptable Qualification Statement MUST include enough information for the continuing education reviewers to assess the qualifications of the author/presenter. The qualification statement should include the research or programmatic experience of the presenter as it relates to this abstract as well as the educational training of the presenter. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE AUTHOR/PRESENTER MUST BE FREE STANDING—they will not be reviewed by section members who know the qualifications of the author. Failure to be approved for continuing education units historically was not due to having unqualified presenters—it was most commonly due to the failure of well-established injury researchers to describe their educational and experience qualifications.

All meeting rooms at the annual meeting will be equipped with an LCD projector. If your presentation will require additional technology (i.e. to show a film, video, or DVD; demonstrate a special software application interactively, such as a database or GIS system; or go online with a high speed Internet connection), you must indicate that you will require additional technology when you submit your abstract online. Be sure to click on the “Technology Dependent” check-box if need any technology other than an LCD projector.

An expanded summary must be submitted with the abstract. The purpose of the expanded summary is to provide additional information to help reviewers judge the relevance and quality of your work. It should not repeat the abstract material, but instead should provide complementary details about the work. The average length of an expanded summary is 500 words (maximum 2,000). We also welcome abstract submissions for consideration as a Special Session, the Innovations in Injury Research Methods session, Student Paper Award competition, APHA Film and Technology Theatre, and Late-breakers as noted below.

Special Sessions. We welcome proposals for full sessions (90 minutes in length). Session proposals are encouraged for any topic of special interest or topics related specifically to this year's theme. In addition to the electronic online submission of an individual abstract for EACH of the 4-5 papers to be included in a Session, a one-page overview of the proposed Session MUST be submitted directly to Dr. Santosh Verma and Dr. Joyce C. Pressley (ICEHS.APHA.ScientificProgram@gmail.com), ICEHS Scientific Program Committee Co-Chairs. All abstracts are due by the general abstract deadline in February. The one-page overview should include:

1. Overall session title;

2. Name of the lead facilitator and the contact person for the session;

3. Brief overview of the rationale for the session; and

4. List (in presentation order) of the individual abstracts to be organized into this Session, complete with titles, presenters' names, and time allocated for each presentation and any discussion periods.

Please note that each individual abstract to be included in a Session must be submitted through the APHA electronic abstract submission process. In the "Comments to Organizers" box for each abstract submission, the authors should indicate that the abstract is to be considered as part of the proposed session (indicated by Session title). All presenters must complete conflict of interest and also include author qualifications.

Methods Session: An annual session titled Innovations in Injury Research Methods features contemporary theories and concepts, innovative study designs, novel data collection techniques, new analytical approaches and measurement tools, and original research that contains a unique methodological element. Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be considered. This 90-minute session usually consists of 4-5 presentations highlighting methodological issues of special interest to injury researchers. Authors should consider submitting novel approaches to this session. Abstracts using commonly used approaches and methodologies should be submitted to the appropriate topic and not to this methods session.

Student Paper Award Competition and Presentation Award Competition. The purpose of the Student Paper Award is to foster and reward quality research efforts of student members of the ICEHS section. To be eligible for the award, the student must be a member of the ICEHS section. (When joining APHA, students can join one section free of charge). In addition to the Student Paper Award, there are other student presentation awards for oral or poster sessions. To be eligible for any of the awards, please check the student box and/or please consider this abstract for a student award. To qualify for the competition, students must be currently enrolled or have completed their degree program within the last year.

Abstracts eligible for student Awards are submitted through the online APHA abstract submission process in accordance with APHA guidelines, which require that the work be original, unpublished, and not have been previously presented at a professional meeting.

Both regular deadline and late-breaker abstracts qualify for consideration if the student meets the respective submission deadline AND indicates an interest in having their abstract considered for an award. To be eligible for any of the awards, please check the box indicating you would like your abstract to be considered for a student award. (To indicate such interest, on the TITLE screen (Step 2 of the submission process), check the "YES" button on the "Consider This Paper For An Award" question (located in the "Presenting Author and Award Submission" box). Use the pull-down menu to select "Student Paper Award."

Following notice of acceptance of the abstract for either oral or poster presentation by the Scientific Program Chair, applicants must submit a completed manuscript by September 1, 2015. The completed manuscript will be reviewed for the Student Paper Award. For additional information regarding the Student Paper Award competition, review guidelines and information on the ICEHS website or contact the Student Award Committee Co-Chairs, Dr. Kathleen Carlson (Kathleen.Carlson@va.gov) or Dr. Doug Wiebe (dwiebe@exchange.upenn.edu).

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Ready?

Program Planner Contact Information:

Santosh K. Verma, ScD, MPH, MBBS
Center for Injury Epidemiology
Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety
71 Frankland Road
Hopkinton, MA 01748
Phone: 508-497-0213
Santosh.Verma@LibertyMutual.com

and
Joyce Pressley, PhD, MPH
Depts of Epidemiology and Health Policy and Management
Columbia University
722 W. 168th Street, Room 812G
New York, NY 10032
Phone: 212-342-0421
jp376@cumc.columbia.edu

and
Zachary Kerr, PhD, MPH
Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research and Prevention, Inc
401 West Michigan Street, Suite 500
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: 919-972-1822
zkerr@datalyscenter.org

and
Janice Springer, DNP, RN, PHN
Disaster Health Services
American Red Cross
postal mail to: 8200 70th Ave NE
Foley, MN 56329
Phone: 320-290-9532
janice.springer@redcross.org