Dear Community Members and HIPRC Stakeholders,
In the past few weeks, the Pacific Northwest has been beset with tragedy. The staff and faculty of HIPRC are saddened by recent events, including the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR and the duck boat accident here in Seattle. It is events like these, however, that fuel our desire to continue working towards a safer world.
We make our best efforts to leverage these tragedies to better understand why they happen and how we can prevent them from happening again. Through research and community outreach, we are working to make our communities safer places in which to live, work and raise families.
Following the shooting in Roseburg, Dr. Doug Zatzick, HIPRC’s expert on trauma psychiatry, shared tips with KING5 News and KUOW News and Information Radio on recognizing PTSD and offered advice for students returning to school.
Dr. Fred Rivara spoke to Seattle’s KOMO news about the shooting, saying that we don’t live in a more violent society, just one with more guns. In national press, Rivara speaks to WIRED magazine about the difficulty in researching firearms with Congress’ effective prohibition on gun research. He was also quoted in a USA Today article on the shortcomings of national level counts on deadly police pursuits.
We will continue to research the injury areas that most affect our society – not only gun violence, but distracted driving, elderly falls and traumatic brain injury. And we will continue doing outreach to ensure that our research translates into safer communities.
Our ability to reach our goals can’t be accomplished alone, however. I urge you all to support injury research and outreach in whichever way you are able. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you all. Please let me know if you would like to be involved with HIPRC or simply want to learn more about our work.
Finally, I invite you to join us, alongside the Washington Department of Health and the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice Public Health Training Center for the 2015 Injury and 
Violence Prevention Summit on November 13, 2015. Click here for more information and to register.
Sincerely,
Monica S. Vavilala, MD