

Flaura Winston and CHOP Research Have an Impact
It's what we strive for in health services research: impact. And that's exactly what Flaura Winston, MD, PhD, and her team of researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have had on child safety. Dr. Winston pioneered the discipline of biomechanical epidemiology, which combines engineering, medicine, and public health to understand and prevent injury. Her work on pediatric trauma prevention and treatment earned her the prestigious Judson Daland Prize from the American Philosophical Association in 2003; in 2008, Dr. Winston won two prestigious "Impact Awards"--one from AcademyHealth, and the other from the CDC's National Injury Prevention Center--for work that created the largest child-focused motor vehicle crash surveillance system in the world, and used it to change norms and laws around airbags and child safety seats. Her Center for Injury Research and Prevention continues to be a model for translating research into practice, such as confirming the biofidelity of child crash test dummies and using a driving simulator to study common mistakes made by teen drivers.