The Child Injury Health Integration Team look back at 2018-19

Professor Julie Mytton, out-going Director, and Dr Toity Deave, in-coming Director of the Child Injury Health Integration Team (CIPIC HIT) give an update of the HIT’s activities in 2018-19.

The aims of the CIPIC HIT are to develop interventions to prevent unintentional injuries in children aged 0-18 years and to maximise the value of data to inform decision making to prevent injuries.

In autumn 2018, Julie and Dr Mark Lyttle (Bristol Royal Hospital for Children) completed a project to explore the feasibility of identifying potentially modifiable risk factors for non-fatal traumatic brain injury. We found that patient and public perspectives were generally positive towards establishing a register of patients with head injuries, and that the existing, routine patient records would allow analysis of risk factors for head injuries. We are currently exploring how to build on these findings.

Julie is standing down as Director and handing over the reins to Toity (UWE Bristol) who has been involved in community-based injury prevention for many years. The HIT want to say a big thank you to Julie for her hard work over the past seven years. We’d also like to thank Jessica Williams and Dr Jo Copping, from Bristol City Council, who led the child injury health needs assessment in 2018. The report is now available on the Bristol City Council website.

Toity has been working with the University of Bristol’s Department of Engineering and Systems Design, health visitors and parents to develop an interactive injury prevention intervention that highlights child injury hazards in a domestic environment. This three-dimensional photosphere includes three ‘unsafe’ rooms with hazards labelled invisibly. The user can identify them by hovering over or clicking with the cursor, so that hazard information and prevention messages are revealed. The development is nearly finished and the next phase will be to explore the photosphere’s impact.

Looking ahead, there is the possibility of working with the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration West (NIHR ARC West). This proposal includes a research programme called ‘Healthier Childhoods’ which aims to improve the physical and mental health of children, particularly those experiencing abuse, neglect, poverty, illness and disability. This proposal would allow the CIPIC team to work with ARC researchers to explore inequalities in childhood injuries through the data collected by a range of health service providers.

CIPIC remains committed to working with other HITs, including collaborations and developing funding bids so please do contact us.