Presenter Profile
Allison Stephens
Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies
Center for Community-Engaged Medicine
Tufts Medical Center
Allison Stephens, PhD, MEd uses her extensive experience in family and community engagement, including systems advocacy, to support the relevance of the HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) framework for diverse families and communities. Her background spans over 20 years and includes children’s mental health, K-12 and higher education, and public policy and leadership. Additionally, Dr. Stephens’ longstanding involvement in social justice activism, advocacy, and policy are especially applicable anti-racism, anti-bias, and equity research and initiatives. She holds a PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Rutgers University, an MEd in Health Promotion from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and a BS in Health Care Administration also from UNLV. Since joining the HOPE National Resource Center, Dr. Stephens has expanded meaningful outreach through the National Advisory Board, the new Family-community Advisory Council, and the HOPE Innovation Network.
Presentations
Reducing Unintentional Injury by Creating Equitable Access to Safe Environments
HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) proposes that children need four types of experiences for healthy development: relationships, environment, engagement, and emotional growth. This workshop will use this framework to develop ideas for equitable unintentional injury prevention.
Equitable access to safe environments for children to live, learn and play may help to reduce unintentional injury rates among all children. Focusing on individual risk factors as a means to reduce injury rates has had a limited effect; looking upstream to ways to create more equitable and safe environments may help to speed progress. One example of a policy change resulting in a significant reduction in unintentional injury and death was the implementation of the 1976 window guard rule in New York City which requires building owners to install window guards in apartment buildings that house children under the age of ten. This resulted in a dramatic (78%) decrease in window falls and window fall deaths (54%).
Emotional growth results from child-centered play; improving urban green spaces in low income areas improves mental and physical health. Playgrounds in poor communities are often more dangerous than in other areas. Can these spaces designed to be attractive to children, while using engineering principles to reduce unintentional injuries, including pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions?
Join members from the HOPE team as we dive into what it would take to create equity in injury prevention. The team will review the basic framework of HOPE including the research behind the protective nature of key positive childhood experiences. We will then discuss how individuals and organizations can use local data to drive changes in policy and practice leading to more equitable access to safe and stable environments for children to live, learn, and play. Participants will work in small groups to discuss a) what disparities they are seeing locally in demographic representation in unintended injuries b) where they anticipate these disparities may be stemming from and c) what they can do upon returning from the conference to engage the affected communities in coming up with solutions. Each participant will leave the session with a concrete plan to begin promoting equitable access to safe environments in their community.