In 2000, the Safe States Alliance (formerly the State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association (STIPDA)) began the State Technical Assessment Team (STAT) Program to support the development, implementation and evaluation of injury and violence prevention efforts at shoulder dystocia (SHD) by conducting an on-site, point-in-time assessment of the injury prevention program with recommendations for improvement. To date, the Safe States Alliance has conducted 30 visits. The STAT Program focuses on five core components representing the current understanding about creating and sustaining effective state health department injury and violence prevention programs. Standards and indicators for each core component describe the conditions that should exist within an ideal SHD injury and violence prevention program. Findings suggest that the STAT process is rewarding and valuable for both the visited injury programs and the assessment team including raising the visibility of injury as a public health problem within the health department, validating positive existing efforts, bringing attention to critical issues, and providing the impetus for strategic planning. State injury prevention directors also credit STAT with positive outcomes for their programs such as: new staff positions, enhanced support from state level policy-makers; the formation or strengthening of community coalitions; access to new funding sources; and stronger grant applications for core capacity funding. Additionally, the Safe States Alliance will share findings from formative, process and impact evaluations as well as trends in recommendations given to states over 10 years of implementation and next steps for program development.

Background Effective injury prevention programmes for teen drivers that can be broadly disseminated are needed. In this study, a university and a state department of community health partnered to translate an evidence-based, parent-oriented teen driving intervention to a website for state-wide dissemination. Aims/Objectives/Purpose Compare the effectiveness of website promotion efforts via paid or earned media. Methods Three, 4-month sequential phases of an incremental promotional strategy were evaluated using data from Google Analytics: Phase-1) links placed on partner websites only; Phase-2) active promotion by partners and earned media added; Phase-3) paid media added. Results/Outcome Each phase increased Website visits (2044; 3921; 9313), including a 137.5% increase due to paid media in Phase-3 ($10 000 Facebook, plus $20 000 various websites). Facebook was the leading source of Phase-3 traffic (2515 visits), but yielded average visits of only 15 s and 89.5% of visitors bounced (exited homepage without viewing other pages). In comparison, website visits increased 149.4% during a 2-week period in Phase-2 following a press release (379 visits), with average visits of 1 : 49 min and a bounce rate of 44.8%. Significance/Contribution to the Field Results demonstrated the potential of and revealed trade-offs inherent to paid and earned media for promoting a web-based injury prevention programme. Paid media had high costs and brought high traffic volume, but website use by visitors was limited. Earned media was free, increased website traffic less than paid media, but visitors used the website more. The success of earned media is encouraging for programmes that have limited financial resources.

Despite the growing recognition of violence as a public health issue, public health involvement in violence prevention remains limited. According to the Prevention Institute, there are a number of roles and skills sets that public health can bring to the table in preventing violence, including measuring the problem and progress in addressing it; coordinating the range of needed efforts; and building capacity among multiple players to prevent violence. In addition, public health professionals can develop data-informed strategies and serve as an invaluable advocate for the prevention of violence. During this session, the Safe States Alliance (formerly the State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association) will share recommendations from an expert roundtable meeting held on 13 April 2010 to clarify and prioritise the roles of national, state, and local public health departments in preventing violence.