PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

The European Association for Injury Prevention & Safety Promotion (EuroSafe) recognised Professor Leif Svanström for his outstanding contribution and prominent role in the development of safety promotion when it presented him with its lifetime achievement award. The award was presented at the 1st European Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in Vienna on 27 June 2006.

Nancy Nord has been appointed Acting Chairman of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Ms Nord became a Commissioner at CPSC in May 2005. Her term as Commissioner expires in October 2012. Before joining CPSC, Ms Nord held a number of legal positions both in the federal government and the private sector. A native of South Dakota, she holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska and a law degree from the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

RANKING PREVENTIVE MEASURES

In a landmark study, US Partnership for Prevention ranked the health impact and cost effectiveness of 25 clinical preventive services recommended by two nationally recognized sources: the US Preventive Services Task Force and Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The study identified preventive services that are most valuable, highest value preventive services that are most underused, and preventive services that would provide the most gains in health were utilization rates increased. Childhood injury prevention counselling languished twentieth in the list of clinical preventive services, which was topped by aspirin chemoprophylaxis, childhood immunization series, and tobacco use screening and brief intervention. The study has been published extensively in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. See http://tinyurl.com/fv55l.

MAKE ROADS SAFE REPORT

The Commission for Global Road Safety published the Make Roads Safe report in June in London to urge leaders of the G8 countries to make road safety a development agenda priority. The report argues that road deaths are a global epidemic on the scale of malaria and …