~ submitted by Kimberley Freire
It’s No Accident that David Sleet won a Distinguished Career Award in Injury Prevention
Injuries are reported to be the leading cause of death for Americans ages 1 to 44 and to cost an estimated $406 billion annually in lost productivity and medical expenses. David Sleet, PhD, associate director of science in the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control), has spent decades putting his knowledge to work in protecting the health of the public by showing the ways psychology – more accurately referred to as behavioral science – can be used to prevent these enormous losses.
The value of Sleet’s work in using behavior science to prevent injuries has been recognized by organizations such as MADD, which presented him and the NCIPC team with the National President’s Award in 2006 for systematic reviews of the effectiveness of strategies to reduce alcohol-impaired driving, such as using traffic checkpoints, setting the minimum legal drinking age, and server intervention programs. The team’s scientific research on the effectiveness of reducing the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) for drivers from 0.10 g/dL to 0.08 g/dL, played a pivotal role in the passage of National legislation for 0.08 BAC.
Known as one of the founders of the graduate school of public health at San Diego State University (SDSU), Sleet joined NCIPC as Associate Director for Science in 1992. In 2000 SDSU’s College of Sciences presented him with its Monty Award for Distinguished Alumni of the Year. Subsequently the U.S. House of Representatives honored Sleet with a Congressional Citation of Special Recognition for career contributions in public health.
Dr. Sleet stands out among the distinguished nominees because his efforts have made the world a safer place to live. Dr. Sleet has:
- Spearheaded the CDC alert on the dangers of airbags to children (MMWR, 1993), long before the problem was recognized. Subsequent deaths to children forced Congressional hearings which led to less aggressive airbag technology, an airbag on-off switch, and a campaign to place children in the back seat.
- Authored the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Strategic Plan for Traffic Safety and Public Health which led to memoranda of understanding and a series of on-going collaborations between DOT (NHTSA) and HHS (CDC) for nearly 20 years.
- Initiated and helped plan the First Surgeon General’s Conference on Drunk Driving, setting a clear agenda for public health policy development and evaluation. Dr. Sleet’s 1990 published review of the evidence on BAC and risk was used by the Australian government to pass a national legal limit of 0.05 percent BAC.
- Prepared the Presidential Proclamation on Child Passenger Safety, which resulted in a National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Day, a National Observance each year (since 1983) that still serves to unite advocates for child safety.
- Conducted the first cost-benefit analysis of airbag safety outside the US, resulting in a National Program to exempt airbags from importation taxes in Finland. .
Responsible for banning the “WatchLighter” (a watch/cigarette lighter combination) in California and successfully petitioned the CPSC to add “novelty lighters” to its rulemaking for a child-proof lighter standard, which has saved 200-300 child deaths annually from burns.
Now Sleet has a new honor: APHA’s Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section has chosen him as its 2009 winner of the Distinguished Career Award, given for “outstanding dedication and leadership in injury control and emergency health services with contributions and achievements that have a significant and long-term impact on the field.” APHA presented Sleet with the award Nov. 10, 2009, during its 137th Annual Meeting & Exposition in Philadelphia. Former CDC Director William Foege, MD, is the only other CDC’er to have received this award since its inception in 1989.
So how are the results of work like Sleet’s used to prevent injuries? Psychology can help answer questions such as what behaviors contribute to injuries, which behavioral interventions can prevent them, and what are the psychological impacts of traumatic injuries on people and their families. Although environmental change has been the preferred method to prevent injuries, according to Sleet, nearly all injuries have a behavioral component. Even changes in vehicles and roads require some behavioral adaptation. By understanding these interactions between human behavior and environments, more injuries can be prevented.
He is co-editor of the landmark 2004 World report on road traffic injury prevention (which won the HRH Prince Michael (of Kent) Premier International Road Safety Award) and has co-edited two additional recent books, unique to the field: Injury and Violence Prevention: Behavioral Science Theories, Methods, and Applications (2006) and the Handbook for Injury and Violence Prevention (2007), a book of best practices.
He is former acting director of the Division of Unintentional Injury, and has served on the scientific staff of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Road Transportation and Geotechnical Laboratory (Finland), Vrije Universiteit (Brussels, Belgium), the Health Department of Western Australia, and directed the Road Accident Prevention Research Unit at the University of Western Australia.
He is the author of more than 160 scientific articles and has contributed to HEW and DHHS’s Healthy People and Objectives for the Nation in the area of injury prevention since their inception in 1979. He is adjunct professor in behavioral science and health education at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.