The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation Center at the University of New Mexico will host a discussion with Ron Barr on prevention efforts...

RWJF Offers Lecture, Workshop on Shaken Baby Syndrome
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at UNM presents a lecture, “Where the Rubber Hits the Road: How science can be translated into policy for prevention of shaken baby syndrome,” on Thursday, Nov. 13 from 12:30 – 2 p.m. in the Barbara & Bill Richardson Pavilion room 1500. Then, from 2:30 – 4 p.m., a workshop, “Community-wide, Culturally-sensitive Prevention Programs for Shaken Baby Syndrome: Principles and Challenges for Implementation,” is set in the same location. The events are part of the RWJF Fall Lecture Series.

Photo: Ron Barr, professor of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia

The lecture features Ronald Barr, Canada Research Chair in Community Child Health Research at the University of British Columbia. Barr is a professor of Pediatrics on 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. He is also director of the “Experience-based Brain and Biological Development” Programme of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Barr will describe a primary, universal, community-based prevention program for Shaken Baby Syndrome.

This presentation will:

· Delineate four convergent lines of evidence for the program,
· describe the stages of its development,
· discuss the prerequisites for a primary prevention initiative,
· describe the development (including cross cultural focus groups), testing (randomized controlled trials of knowledge and behavior) and,
· discuss strategies and challenges for jurisdiction-wide implementation in North Carolina and British Columbia

Continuing Medical and Nursing Education is available.

The workshop features Marilyn Barr, founder and executive director of the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome in Canada, and Ronald Barr.
In this symposium workshop, the Barrs will describe their experience of effectively implementing the Period of PURPLE Crying prevention of shaken baby syndrome program. The Barrs will illustrate their discussion using specific examples from recent implementation projects in North Carolina and British Columbia.

Topics include:
· basic principles that need to be met to justify implementation jurisdiction-wide

· importance of timing and “doses” of intervention

· challenges and processes required for effective translations of the materials into eight languages

· importance of bringing about a cultural change in order to establish long-term
sustainability

· discussion of the 10 most “frequently asked questions” that implementation raises

For more information contact the RWJF Center at 277-0130 or rwjf@unm.edu.

Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu