The Ontario Injury Prevention Resource Centre (which has some excellent injury prevention resources available to share with the rest of the world - "Thanks, Ontario!") has made the text, Powerpoint and audio available for an interesting presentation by Ron Barr on the Prevention of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

It provides a lot of context for the relationship of infant crying and SBS. The site summary of Dr. Barr's presentation is below.

The presentation discusses the use of the PURPLE campaign materials developed by the National Center (since I can't find the R in a circle font character used for that purpose, I should note that PURPLE is a registered trademark, presumably owned by the Center), which are being used in regional parent education programs in British Columbia, North Carolina and Utah.

It will be interesting to see the evaluations of those implementations and compare the effectiveness of that model with the Dias hospital-based prevention model developed at Children's Hospital of Buffalo in 1998 .

It was reported in Pediatrics, discussed as a model prevention program by the JCAHO newsletter, and was the model for state legislation now being implemented statewide in New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Pennsylvania project and the North Carolina project were funded by CDC in 2007.

The NACHRI site has an interesting article discussing various models for hospital-based SBS education.

Infant Crying and Shaken Baby Syndrome: The Evidence Base for Implementing the
“PURPLE” Prevention Program
May 6, 2008 - Dr. Ronald G. Barr

Ronald Barr MA, MDCM, FRCP(C) is the Canada Research Chair in Community Child Health Research at the University of British Columbia, Professor of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, and Director of the Centre for Community Child Health Research at the Child and Family Research Institute of the BC Children’s Hospital.

In addition, he is the Director of the “Experience-based Brain and
Biological Development” Programme of the Canadian Institute for Advanced
Research. Both his clinical work and research have focused on the needs of
infants and young children. He is well-known for his studies on the biological
and behavioral determinants of behavior, including pain, behavioral state and
crying, cognition and memory, as well as for the outcomes of early clinical
manifestations of these behaviors for later development (temperament,
reactivity). In addition, his current interests include primary community
prevention of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

* * *

The teleconference will focus on providing the evidence base behind
the primary community educational program called the Period of PURPLE Crying,
designed to prevent shaken baby syndrome and infant physical abuse, especially
under 1 year of age. It will briefly review

(1) the seriousness of shaken baby syndrome (abusive head trauma);
(2) the evidence for the normality of early increased crying in infancy;
(3) the relationship between increased crying and shaken baby syndrome;
(4) the components of the PURPLE programme;
(5) the conceptual frame behind the PURPLE program;
(6) preliminary results from an RCT to assess its ability to change
knowledge and behaviors relevant to SBS prevention; and (7) the elements of
implementation throughout a jurisdiction.

Session Materials
Session OutlinePowerPoint SlidesPDF Slides Audio of session