Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Dermatology / 06.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Sarah Hall PhD Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science Anglia Ruskin University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We initially started the study in collaboration with Essex Fire and Rescue Services, as we were already doing some research on the recovery of evidence from fire scenes. During a visit to their cold fire scene facility, they described a tragic fatality with extensive fire damage, which didn’t link with the main fuel in the room. Therefore they questioned if a skin cream, regularly used by the victim, could have contributed as a fuel or ignited to initiate the fire and asked if we would do some initial research. Now we are also working with West Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, the London Fire Brigade, St Andrews Centre for Plastic Surgery and Burns and the National Fire Chiefs Council. We initially started the study in collaboration with Essex Fire and Rescue Services, as we were already doing some research on the recovery of evidence from fire scenes. During a visit to their cold fire scene facility, they described a tragic fatality with extensive fire damage, which didn’t link with the main fuel in the room. Therefore they questioned if a skin cream, regularly used by the victim, could have contributed as a fuel or ignited to initiate the fire and asked if we would do some initial research. Now we are also working with West Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, the London Fire Brigade, St Andrews Centre for Plastic Surgery and Burns and the National Fire Chiefs Council. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Emergency Care, JAMA, Yale / 24.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Edouard Coupet Jr, MD, MS Assistant Professor Department of Emergency Medicine Yale School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: For many individuals with nonfatal firearm injuries, their only point of contact with the healthcare system may be the emergency department. Both hospital-based violence intervention programs and counseling and safe firearm storage have shown promise in reducing the burden of firearm injury. In this study, one third of individuals with firearm injuries presented to non-trauma centers. Only 1 out of 5 firearm injuries were assault injuries that led to admission to trauma centers, the population most likely to receive interventions to reduce re-injury.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Sexual Health / 06.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Angie Kennedy, PhD Associate Professor School of Social Work Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Nearly half of women (44%) experience physical or sexual partner violence by young adulthood, with 1 in 5 girls in high school reporting abuse within the last year. Sexual violence typically co-occurs with other forms of partner violence; co-occurring sexual and physical violence among adolescent girls is linked to health-risk behaviors including alcohol and drug use, unhealthy weight control, sexual risk-taking, and suicidality. As such, it represents a serious public health problem. To better understand this issue, we wanted to explore risk factors for sexual violence during young women’s adolescent and young adult relationships, i.e., what predicts attempted rape and rape by a partner during this vulnerable period? We took a novel approach: We examined predictors across multiple relationships, beginning with the first one, and we recruited a diverse sample of young women from a four-year research university, a two-year community college, and community sites serving low-income young women. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Social Issues / 06.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rebecca R. Thompson, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Scholar Department of Psychological Science University of California, Irvine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Our research team has been interested in how people respond to the repeated threat of disaster exposure for many years. We recently published a review of the literature on evacuation from natural disasters, and one of our main findings was that there have been no studies that include assessments of individuals’ intentions, perceptions, and psychological states assessed prior to an approaching storm’s landfall – all prior research has been retrospective, and recall is undoubtedly biased and unreliable.  Our goal in undertaking this study was to fill this hole in the literature. We sought to assess individuals' responses to Hurricane Irma in the days leading up to and immediately after its landfall in the State of Florida. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Sexual Health, UCSD / 26.12.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John W. Ayers, PhD, MA Vice Chief of Innovation | Assoc. Professor Div. Infectious Disease & Global Public Health University of California San Diego MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: The greatest barrier to understanding trends around sexual violence is they are largely hidden because victims are unable speak up publicly. Moreover, ongoing monitoring relies on proxies that underreport the scale of the problem such as police or medical records where only the most severe instances or a fraction of all instances of sexual violence are represented. As a result, we know very little about the scale of America's sexual violence problem. It was this backdrop that inspired #MeToo to call on victims to publicly voice their stories thereby revealing the scale of the problem. Our goal was to, for the first time, assess how this change inspired the public to engage with sexual violence issues. By tracking private aggregate internet search query trends we can begin to understand the scale of public engagement with issues around sexual violence including the precise motivation for a search, such as reporting episodes of sexual violence or learning how to prevent sexual violence. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics, USPSTF / 28.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alex Kemper, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.  Dr. Kemper is a board-certified pediatrician and chief of the Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He is also the deputy editor of Pediatrics. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this recommendation statement? What are the main findings and recommendations?  Response: Child maltreatment, which includes abuse and neglect, is a serious health problem that affects too many children in the United States.  Abuse and neglect can have devastating health consequences, including long-term disabilities, depression, physical injury, and even death. In 2016, approximately 676,000 children were subjected to maltreatment, and more than 1,700 children died as a result. Because this is such an important public health issue, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force looked at the most recent evidence on whether primary care clinicians can help prevent child maltreatment and its negative consequences. We found that, unfortunately, there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against these interventions. The Task Force is calling for more research on this important subject so that we can help prevent children from being abused and neglected.    (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Social Issues / 26.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "USA - NY - City of New York Police VARIATION" by conner395 is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Jordan E. DeVylder, PhD Graduate School of Social Service Fordham University, New York, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This study is intended to address the lack of empirical research on police violence from a public health perspective. The main findings are that police violence is relatively widespread in Baltimore and New York City, is disproportionately directed toward people of color and sexual or gender minorities, and is associated with psychological distress, suicidal behavior, and psychosis-like symptoms. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 20.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Pondering a firearm" by Dan Foy is licensed under CC BY 2.0Erin Morgan PhD Student | Department of Epidemiology University of Washington MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Going into this study we were interested in looking at youth exposure to unsafely stored firearms. Unsafely stored firearms in the household, especially those that are stored unlocked, are a known risk factor for adolescent suicide. We were also interested in looking into a population of children and teens who are at particularly heightened risk for suicide and unintentional injury—those living with an adult who misuses alcohol. Overall, we found that about 30% of those under the age of 18 live in a firearm owning home and among those youth, around 55% lived with a firearm stored in a way other than locked and unloaded. Among those in firearm owning household, we also found that when compared to youth living with a survey respondent that did not report alcohol misuse, those living with an adult that did misuse alcohol were 20% more likely to reside in a home where the firearm was stored unsafely; children were 27% more likely to live in a home reporting unlocked storage, specifically. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA / 31.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Halloween Parade 2014" by GoToVan is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. John A. Staples, MD Clinical Assistant Professor University of British Columbia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: At this time last year, my co-author Candace Yip and I noticed an impressive number of advertisements for Halloween-themed parties at bars taped to lamp-posts. We wondered if the combination of dark costumes, dark evenings, alcohol and trick-or-treaters made the streets more dangerous for pedestrians. To see if our hunch was correct, we examined 42 years of data on all fatal vehicle crashes in the United States between 1975 and 2016. We compared the number of pedestrian fatalities between 5 p.m. and midnight on Halloween with the number during the same hours on control days one week earlier and one week later. We found that 14 pedestrian deaths occurred on the average Halloween, while only 10 pedestrian deaths occurred on the average control evening. This corresponded to a 43% increase in the relative risk of pedestrian fatality on Halloween. Among children aged 4 to 8 years of age, the risk of death was ten times higher on Halloween evening compared to control evenings. Risks were highest around 6pm, which is prime trick-or-treating time. Absolute risks were small and declined throughout the four decades of the study, but the relative risk increase on Halloween persisted throughout the entire study interval.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Johns Hopkins, Surgical Research / 30.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Me holding USP gun” by Nghị Trần is licensed under CC BY 2.0Faiz Gani, PhD Postdoctoral research fellow Department of Surgery Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Firearm related injuries are a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, yet, due to combination of factors, limited data exist that evaluate these injuries, particularly among younger patients (patients younger than 18 years). The objective of this study was to describe emergency department utilization for firearm related injuries and to quantitate the financial burden associated with these injuries. In our study of over 75,000 emergency department visits, we observed that each year, over 8,300 children and adolescents present to the emergency department for the treatment / management of a gunshot injury. Within this sub-population of patients, we observed that these injuries are most frequent among patients aged 15-17 years and while these injuries decreased over time initially, were observed to increase again towards the end of the time period studied. In addition to describing the clinical burden of these injuries, we also sought to describe the financial burden associated with these injuries. For patients discharged from the emergency department, the average (median) charge associated with their care was $2,445, while for patients admitted as inpatients for further care, the average (median) charge was $44,966. Collectively these injuries resulted in $2.5 billion in emergency department and hospital charges over the time period studied. This translates to an annual financial burden of approximately $270 million. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Cannabis / 28.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Mark A. R. Kleiman PhD Affiliated Faculty, NYU Wagner; Professor of Public Policy NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: As state after state legalizes the sale of cannabis, the question of cannabis-impaired driving is getting more attention. There is evidence that the practice has become more common, both because cannabis use - and especially heavy, frequent use - has increased and because a distressingly large fraction of cannabis users believe, falsely, that stoned driving is safe. The natural response to the problem is to treat cannabis on a par with alcohol: fairly severe criminal penalties for impaired driving, with impairment defined by a specific level of the drug in the body. The paper argues that this would be a mistake, for four independent reasons: - While cannabis makes driving riskier, it does so by about a factor of two, with no strongly observed dependency on dosage. Alcohol, by contrast, has a steep dose-effect curve. At the legal limit of 0.08% blood alcohol content by weight, the relative risk of drunk driving is at least eight; at 0.15%, which is fairly common, the relative risk has been estimated at 30-50. So there is no justification for punishing stoned driving as severely as we punish drunk driving. - The lack of evidence of a strong dose-effect relationship suggests that a legal standard based on the content of cannabinoids in blood may not be appropriate. - Even if a blood standard were valid, the lack of a breath test would make enforcing that standard nearly impossible as a practical matter. - The long and unpredictable course of cannabis metabolism means that frequent users will be at risk of failing a drug test even when they are neither subjectively intoxicated nor objectively impaired. Worse, they would have no way of judging in advance whether or not driving would be legal. The result would be a re-criminalization of cannabis use through the back door.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA / 26.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John W. Epling, Jr., M.D., M.S.Ed Professor of Family and Community Medicine Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Roanoke, VA USPSTF Task Force Member MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Intimate partner violence, often known as domestic violence, can have devastating consequences to one’s health and wellbeing. It can lead to mental illness, substance abuse, unintended pregnancy, and even death. This is a serious public health issue in America: one in three men—and even more women—experience it in their lifetimes. Because this is such an important topic, and the last time we made a recommendation on it was in 2013, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reviewed the most recent evidence to determine how clinicians can help prevent the negative health effects of intimate partner violence. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 25.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Gary A. Smith, MD, DrPH Director, Center for Injury Research and Policy Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus, OH MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: When residential fires happen at night while people are sleeping, deaths are more likely to occur. Smoke alarms are important for preventing these deaths, yet many young children don’t wake up to traditional high-pitch tone alarms. Children sleep longer and deeper than adults and require louder sounds to awaken than adults. For these reasons, children are less likely to awaken and escape a nighttime home fire. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Geriatrics, JAMA, Ophthalmology, University of Pittsburgh / 05.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Syed Mahmood Ali Shah, M.D. Associate Professor of Ophthalmology University of Pittsburgh School of MedicineSyed Mahmood Ali Shah, M.D. Associate Professor of Ophthalmology University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Eye trauma is a significant cause of morbidity throughout the world. In the United States, the incidence of individuals hospitalized with eye trauma from 2001 through 2014 increased. Most of these individuals were above the age of 65 and suffered a fall. This is a worrisome trend in light of an increased awareness and continued and concentrated effort to reduce falls. This is a critical point: We need to improve our existing strategies to reduce falls. The second at-risk group is children and adolescents. Previous studies have shown that effective widespread implementation of injury prevention efforts can lower trauma rates. While we did observe a small decrease in eye trauma as a primary admitting diagnosis, the fact that it was more common in children and adolescents (for whom eye trauma carries devastating consequences and can significantly reduce quality of life) highlights the significance of continued efforts to prevent eye trauma.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Alcohol, Author Interviews / 03.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pamela Trangenstein, PhD While  a predoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY)  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Research repeatedly shows that alcohol outlet density (the number of businesses that sell alcohol in an area) is associated with violent crime, but studies disagree about whether alcohol outlets that are on premise (e.g., bars, restaurants) or off premise (e.g., liquor stores, beer and wine stores) have a stronger association with violent crime. We used advanced methods that consider both the number of alcohol outlets and their locations to better understand how the association between alcohol outlets and violent crime differs by type of outlet. We found that alcohol outlets that allow off-premise sales like liquor stores had a stronger association with homicide, aggravated assault, and robbery than on-premise outlets like bars and restaurants. We also found that disadvantaged neighborhoods had higher access to the types of alcohol outlets associated with the most harms: off-premise outlets.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, CDC, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 21.09.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Kameron Sheats PhD Licensed Psychologist; Behavioral Scientist Centers for Disease Control and Prevention MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This study updates literature on racial disparities in violence between black and white youth using data capturing different severity levels in violent outcomes such as homicide versus assault. This study also seeks to increase the understanding of the impact of these disparities by examining associations between disparities in childhood adversity (e.g., child abuse and neglect, exposure to violence, household challenges) and adult health conditions. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 18.09.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Ruth Blackburn PhD  UKRI Innovation Fellow UCL Institute of Health Informatics Dr Ruth Blackburn PhD  UKRI Innovation Fellow UCL Institute of Health Informatics  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In England one child in every classroom is admitted to hospital with an adversity related injury (i.e. violence, intentional self-injury, or drug or alcohol misuse) between the ages of 10 and 19 years. These young people are more likely than their classmates to be re-admitted to hospital or to die within 10 years. We investigated how the rate of hospital admissions with an adversity related injury has changed over time among young people aged 10-24 years, using administrative data for National Health Service hospitals in England. We found that between 2012 and 2016, rates of admission with an adversity related injury (including intentional self-injury) increased steeply for girls, with the biggest increase (6% per year) among 15-19 year olds. During the same time period, rates of admission with an adversity related injury decreased in boys aged 15-24 years (4-5% per year) but increased slightly for 10-14 year olds (3% per year).  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, JAMA, Surgical Research / 12.09.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adil Haider, MD, MPH, FACS Kessler Director for the Center for Surgery and Public Health Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Deputy Editor of JAMA Surgery MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Firearm-related mortality is a public health issue. However, in the US, due in part to lack of funding, there is not enough research to inform the debate about firearms. The question our group sought to answer was to understand if the presence of a semi-automatic weapon increased the number of victims killed or hurt during an active shooter incident. We chose to focus on these incidents given the availability of an FBI database detailing these active shooter incidents based on a strict definition and the similarities between such incidents that make a comparison valid. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 21.08.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:, Motao Zhu, MD, MS, PhD Principal Investigator Center for Injury Research and Policy The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital? Columbus, OHMotao Zhu, MD, MS, PhD Principal Investigator Center for Injury Research and Policy The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital? Columbus, OH MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We know that texting while driving occurs frequently among teen drivers. This study looks at the differences of texting while driving among teens between states. Motor vehicle crashes continue to be the leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States. In 2016, over 2,000 teens in the US aged 14-18 years died in motor vehicle crashes and nearly 260,000 were seriously injured in traffic-related incidents. Even though there are cheap car insurance brokers available, teen motor vehicle crashes are preventable, and proven strategies can improve the safety of young drivers on the road. Among distracted driving, texting while driving may be especially risky because it involves at least three types of driver distraction: visual, physical, and cognitive. Texting while driving is banned for all drivers in 47 states and the District of Columbia, yet this study shows it still occurs regularly among teen drivers. Overall (nationally), about 40% of high school student drivers text while driving at least once/month. The rate varies among states. The lowest is 26% (Maryland) and highest is 64% (South Dakota). Texting while driving among high school student drivers is highest in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. These results were not surprising. There are state level factors to explain them. The top 5 highest texting while driving among high school student drivers (Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska) are rural states with a high percent of high school student drivers and students can get their learners permit by age 15. (more…)
Accidents & Violence / 17.08.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Me holding USP gun” by Nghị Trần is licensed under CC BY 2.0Brianna Mills, PhD Research Scientist Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center University of Washington MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We know that substance use, mental disorders, and arrest are markers of increased risk of firearm injury. However, many studies of firearm injury are limited in scope – looking only at one type of injury (assault-related, for example) and one type of data (often hospital records). Police shootings, although occurring with increasing frequency, have also received relatively less attention in research than other types of firearm injuries. We combined data from a variety of sources, including both hospital and arrest records, so we could present a more complete picture of firearm injuries in Seattle, including contacts with law enforcement and healthcare in the two years prior to injury. We subdivided substance use, mental disorder, and arrests into more specific categories to present a more nuanced look at how each category may indicate increased risk of a specific type of firearm injury (assault-related, self-inflicted, unintentional, and police intervention). We found that when you consider both arrest records and hospital records together a distinct pattern of prior contact emerges for people who were shot by police – they have arrest histories similar to people shot during an assault and hospital histories similar to people with self-inflicted firearm injuries. A majority of people shot during an assault or by police were either arrested or hospitalized in the two years prior to their injury. Compared to our control group, people shot by police were 22 times more likely to have a conduct disorder, 11 times more likely to have been diagnosed with a marijuana use disorder, and 7 times more likely to have a felony arrest, psychosis diagnosis, or depression/anxiety diagnosis.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Environmental Risks, JAMA / 06.08.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada Director, Graduate Program in Applied Demography Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology Research Affiliate, Population Research Institute College of Liberal Arts Penn State University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Dr. Howard and I have been working on the topic of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria since November, and provided rapid-response estimates by the end of November about the humanitarian crisis experienced by Puerto Ricans following the Hurricane. Our main findings are that there are approximately 1,139 deaths in excess of historical patterns between September, October and November in Puerto Rico. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA / 03.08.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Angela Sauaia, MD, PhD Professor of Public Health and Surgery University of Colorado Denver Statistical Editor, Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Statistical Consultant, Department of Surgery Denver Health Medical Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: As injury researchers we monitor national trends in injury. The CDC WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is one of the few available open sources of injury data we can use. During the 1980’s and 1990’s, we saw much improvement in deaths due to most injury mechanisms, such as car accidents fatalities. Our study shows, however, that recent trends seem to be eroding these promising survival gains. Both violent and unintentional injuries alike seem to be increasing, especially since 2014. We are unclear about the causes of this recent increase in trauma-related deaths, but it is an alarming trend. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA / 30.07.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “GUNS” by Jessica Spengler is licensed under CC BY 2.0Kendrin R. Sonneville, ScD, RD Assistant Professor Department of Nutritional Sciences University of Michigan School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The results from this come out of MyVoice, a text message cohort of youth ages 14-24 representing every state in the country (http://hearmyvoicenow.org/). Each week we ask the youth in our cohort a series of open-ended to questions, with the goal of gathering the real-time opinions and experiences of youth across the U.S. This study reports the results of questions we asked MyVoice paritpatns between 07/2017 and 01/2018 about guns and gun control.  (1) What are your thoughts about having guns in your home? (2) Do you think gun control laws would affect mass shootings? Why? (3) Who, if anyone, should NOT be allowed to own guns? We found that about one-third of youth in our diverse sample were “against” guns in the home, and the remaining two-thirds were either “pro” or “conditionally pro” guns in the home, stating that gun ownership is acceptable under certain conditions, such as proper storage, or kept away from children. Youth in our sample largely believed that gun control laws could decrease mass shootings, but one-third felt that gun control laws would not be enough to impact mass shootings. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Environmental Risks / 13.07.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Subaru cars waiting for ride” by JackeOb is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0Dr. Peng Liu, Assistant Professor Department of Industrial Engineering College of Management and Economics Tianjin University, China MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Self-driving vehicles promise to considerably reduce traffic crashes. However, they cannot eliminate all crashes. On March 18, 2018, a female pedestrian was killed after being struck by an autonomous Uber vehicle in the self-driving mode in Arizona, USA. This fatal crash triggered a widespread public debate over the safety of self-driving vehicles. So, how safe is safe enough for self-driving vehicles? Our findings show that our participants implicitly think self-driving vehicles should be four to five times as safe as the current human-driven vehicles.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Sleep Disorders / 07.07.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Driving...” by Stig Nygaard is licensed under CC BY 2.0Prof. Stephen R Robinson PhD Discipline Leader, Psychology School of Health and Biomedical Sciences RMIT University Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Around the world, driver drowsiness and fatigue are estimated to contribute to 250,000 deaths on the road per year. Current research in this area has focused on detecting when drivers become drowsy, by examining their eye movements or steering patterns, and then alerting the driver with a warning tone or vibration of the steering wheel. Rather than this reactive approach, we are interested in helping to prevent drivers from becoming drowsy in the first place. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh / 05.07.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alison J. Culyba, MD, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor of Pediatrics UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Homicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents, and disproportionately affects minority youth in under-resourced urban communities. Most research on youth violence focuses on risk factors, such as weapon carrying and substance abuse. We know much less about factors that protect youth from violence. Future orientation, defined as hopes and plans for the future, is linked to many important positive outcomes for youth, including doing well in school and avoiding illicit substances. However, there has been very little research to examine whether future orientation may also protect youth from violence. To study links between future orientation and violence perpetration, we surveyed over 850 male youth in lower resource neighborhoods in Pittsburgh as part of a community-based sexual violence prevention study. We found that youth with positive future orientation were significantly less likely to report threatening someone with a weapon or injuring someone with a weapon in the past nine months. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Emergency Care, Pediatrics / 27.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Bikes” by Britta Frahm is licensed under CC BY 2.0Lara McKenzie, PhD Principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Polic Nationwide Children’s Hospital. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Bicycling is a great way for families to get outside and be active together, but certain precautions need to be taken to keep everyone safer. This study looked at bicycle-related injuries among children age 5-17 years treated in hospital emergency departments in the United States from 2006 through 2015 and found that, despite a decrease in the rate of injuries over the 10-year study period, there were still more than 2.2 million injuries. This averages 608 cases per day or 25 every hour. The majority of injuries involved children 10 to 14 years of age (46%) and boys (72%). The most commonly injured body region was the upper extremities (36%), followed by the lower extremities (25%), face (15%), and head and neck (15%). The most common types of injury were bruises and scrapes (29%) and cuts (23%). Overall, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) represented 11% of total injuries and were most common among patients 10-14 years of age (44%). About 4% of patients were hospitalized. Injuries most frequently occurred in the street (48%) or at home (37%). Helmet use at the time of injury was associated with a lower likelihood of head and neck injuries and hospitalizations, but there was no significant change in the rate of injury among helmet users over the study period. Motor vehicle involvement increased the odds of bicycle-related TBIs and injury-related hospitalizations.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Autism, Pediatrics / 14.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Driving” by Martin Alvarez Espinar is licensed under CC BY 2.0Kristina Elise Patrick, Ph.D Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus, OH 43205 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Many families of young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are concerned that they may have difficulty acquiring driver’s licenses and driving safely because of symptoms of ASD. However, the ability to drive opens the door to a variety of social, occupational, and educational experiences. We aimed to assess differences in simulated driving behaviors of young adults with ASD and those with typical development and to evaluate whether differences depended on level of driving experience and complexity of the driving task. On average, young adults with ASD had more difficulty regulating their speed and position within their lane compared with typically developing individuals even on a very basic rural route. After completing the basic route, drivers were required to engage in more complex tasks such as changing the radio or engaging in conversation while driving, driving through a construction zone, and following behind a truck. On complex driving tasks, drivers with ASD who had acquired licensure drove similarly to typically developing drivers who had acquired licensure. However, novice drivers with ASD had more difficulty than typically developing drivers regulating their speed and position within the lane. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Pediatrics / 14.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Crime Scene _MG_4847” by thierry ehrmann is licensed under CC BY 2.0Daniel Romer, PhD Research Director Annenberg Public Policy Center and Director of its Adolescent Communication Institute (ACI) University of Pennsylvania MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have been studying the steady increase in gun violence that has been occurring in popular PG-13 movies since the new rating was adopted in 1984.  It has recently even surpassed the amount of gun violence in R-rated movies.  Since these movies are open to the public at any age, we are concerned that they promote the use of guns and potentially socialize youth to believe that using guns to defend oneself is an appropriate way to handle threats and other conflicts. We knew that the rating requires the omission of graphic consequences, such as blood and suffering, that can make the violence more acceptable.  But we also wondered whether the motivation for the violence might make a difference as well.  Many of the characters in PG-13 movies are seen as heroic (e.g., Bruce Willis and Liam Neeson).  Could that also be a factor that makes such films more acceptable to parents despite their concerns about their children seeing so much violence in the movies.  So, we conducted this experiment to see if parents are less upset by justified violence in PG-13 style movies.  (more…)