International Activities

Faculty and staff of IPRC participate in international activities that are varied in type. These activities range from participating in collaborative research efforts, to technical assistance, and training by individuals from the Center. Some recent activities are listed below.

UNC IPRC Named Affiliate Center for Safe Communities 

UNC IPRC has become an Affiliate Safe Community Support Centre of the Division of Social medicine of the Karolinska Institutet.  Under the agreement, UNC IPRC and the Karolinska Institutet will work together to seek funds and design strategies to evaluate the Safe Communities Programs and to develop effective training in violence prevention. The Safe Communities programs were created and have been managed by the Karolinska Institutet for several decades. 

UNC IPRC’s expertise on evaluation and training will be applied through several collaborative strategies. Some efforts will focus on using the PREVENT model for training while further evaluation strategies will be developed through the work of Dr. Kant Bangdiwala, Andrés Villaveces, and Carol Runyan.

Learn more about Safe Communities

Dr. Shrikant Bangdiwala participated in the ongoing training and capacity building program of the WHO Collaborating Centre of the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Programme (TRIPP) of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. This program aims to develop the capacity of transportation and health sector personnel in prevention and control of transport related injuries. As part of this collaboration, Dr. Bangdiwala provides statistical consultation for the faculty and students of the program.

Drs. Michael Peck and S. Bangdiwala are collaborating with the NC Jaycee Burn Center to determine the correlation between economic indicators and mortality rates in Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Dr. Andrés Villaveces collaborated with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to edit a Spanish version of a curriculum to train practitioners in youth violence prevention. The curriculum will be promoted and used in several Latin-American countries. Dr. A. Villaveces is advising the Cisalva Institute of the University of El Valle in Colombia on injury surveillance projects as well as working on a pilot project to study the built environment and injuries in a large metropolitan area. Dr. A. Villaveces participated as a faculty member in an injury prevention training course in Ghana. The course is organized by the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington. Dr. A. Villaveces collaborated with the United Nations Development Program in El Salvador in a conference about the health consequences of violence. Dr. A Villaveces collaborated with the small arms survey of the University of Geneva on a report about perceptions of safety related to firearms among the population of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Dr. Desmond Runyan serves on the Non-Governmental Organization Advisory Panel for the U.N. Secretary General’s Study of Children and Violence, representing the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. As a part of this group, Runyan was involved in organizing the North American Consultation for the study. Dr. D. Runyan served as consultant to UNICEF on an international survey of child discipline. Runyan helped UNICEF develop a group of child discipline questions for the Maltreatment Classification Study that are being fielded in 60 developing countries that may serve as an indicator for harsh punishment.

Drs. Carol Runyan, D. Runyan, and Kevin Guskiewicz are collaborating with the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation to develop new research on: youth labor (C. Runyan), traumatic brain injury in young children (D. Runyan) and concussions in hockey (K. Guskiewicz) as well as the implementation of a graduate student exchange program between the U. S. and Canada.