Overview

CIRCL’s Training and Outreach Core develops and implements education and training for health professionals and outreach to the community through the university setting, locally, nationally and internationally.

Goals

The goals of the Training and Outreach Core are to introduce more students to the health significance of injury and violence, attract more students to studies in injury prevention and control, mentor graduate students and acute care practitioners in solid injury research activities, train community professionals in the fundamentals of injury prevention, provide continuing education and training to established injury research and control and other health care professionals, disseminate injury research findings to the community, and translate injury research findings into injury prevention programs. The following training and outreach activities meet these goals.

Academic Training

Acute Care Training

Research Mentorship

Community Outreach

Academic Training

The University of Pittsburgh offers an array of courses and degree programs with an injury focus at the graduate and undergraduate level. The curricula in these schools provide meaningful opportunities for students to build skills in injury prevention, acute care and rehabilitation studies, and to pursue degree programs in these areas.

Our academic coursework in injury is offered primarily through the GSPH with the following courses:

• Injury Prevention and Control (EPIDEM 2640)
• Injury Seminar Series (EPIDEM 2250)
• Injury Epidemiology (EPIDEM 2670)
  

In addition to these injury-specific course offerings, CIRCL faculty have also worked to incorporate injury and violence topics into other core courses offered in the GSPH including:

• Principles of Epidemiology (EPIDEM 2110)
• Reading, Analyzing, and Interpreting Public Health and Medical Literature (EPIDEM 2183)
• Critical Issues in Global Health (PUBHLT 2009)*

The Epidemiology courses can be viewed by clicking on EPID.
* For other courses offered at GSPH, click here.

Acute Care Training

With the existing programs in the School of Medicine (SOM) and the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS), standard forms of acute care training for secondary and tertiary injury prevention also take place at the University of Pittsburgh. These programs include emergency medicine, neurological surgery, athletic training, pre-hospital care, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. CIRCL core faculty have been extensively involved in the medical training process.

Research Mentorship

A key component of interaction between CIRCL and University of Pittsburgh faculty has been in the area of research mentoring. The vast research resources of the University of Pittsburgh allows for unique opportunities to expose students at all educational levels to injury and violence research. Research mentorship at CIRCL continues to fulfill the mission of developing future professionals for the field of injury prevention and control.

Community Outreach

Outreach activities at CIRCL have been developed and maintained to provide service to the local, regional and national communities. These efforts have been achieved through the development of unique collaborative relationships with pediatric injury prevention programs and advocacy groups in our local area. Specific outreach efforts at CIRCL include:

• University Programs
  Outreach to the University of Pittsburgh Student Population - CIRCL began collaborating with the University of Pittsburgh Student Health Services’ Office of Health Education and Promotion to enhance its injury prevention program. The collaboration is focusing on three distinct areas; adding injury information and resources to the health services’ website, providing outreach on injury issues at student health fairs, and implementing injury/violence prevention education through the PantherWELL program.
• Injury Prevention Programs
• CIRCL Webinars - Since 2003, CIRCL has utilized the outreach capability of the internet to provide training opportunities beyond the classic seminar, classroom or auditorium setting at the University of Pittsburgh. Using the Elluminate Live! collaborative teaching software, the CIRCL Webinar Series on Injury and Violence has offered 139 live online lectures that have been recorded and archived by CIRCL and freely accessible for repeat playback from a listing of all of the CIRCL Webinars given from 2003-08. The CIRCL Webinars have become widely recognized by injury professionals in the field as a key learning resource, and have received wards and frequent praise. 
• CIRCL Web Site (www.neurosurgery.pitt.edu/circl) - CIRCL maintains a dynamic website to help inform colleagues and the public about our activities. 
• CIRCL Newsletter - CIRCL continues publishing our newsletter, “Frontlines,” having produced 20 issues since 1998. At this time 12 issues are available on our website.