RTIRN at the Aga Khan University 12 th National Health Sciences Research Symposium
The Road Traffic Injuries Research Network played an important role at the 12 th National Health Sciences Research Symposium organized by the Aga Khan University, Karachi from the 26 – 28 August 2008. The symposium this year was themed ‘Injury in the developing world – From prevention to care’. The organizing committee for the symposium was chaired by RTIRN Secretary, Junaid Razzak, Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Aga Khan University. Addressing road traffic injuries as some of the most important types of injuries in the country, and attended by over 400 participants from different areas of health and research, the symposium provided an ideal platform for RTIRN to participate actively. The RTIRN supported this event as part of its ‘Regional Workshops’ project under the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility grant.
The RTIRN Board Chair and Vice Chair, Robyn Norton and Adnan Hyder, contributed to the symposium as co-chairs and speakers in the plenary sessions. Kulanthayan Mani, an RTIRN partner from the University Putra Malaysia also delivered a talk on ‘Injury Surveillance in Children’ during one of the sessions, and an oral presentation on ‘Violence of traffic rules at different posted speed limits in Malaysia’. Junaid Bhatti, partner from Pakistan, presented his work on ‘ Road Traffic Injuries and Associated Road-Factors on Yaoundé-Douala Road Section, Cameroon’.
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RTIRN Chair Robyn Norton Co-Chairs a session at the Symposium |
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RTIRN partner Junaid Bhatti presents his paper |
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RTIRN partner Kulanthayan Mani delivers a talk at one of the sessions |
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RTIRN Vice-Chair Adnan Hyder speaks at a plenary session |
To disseminate information about the Network, an RTIRN booth was set up by the Secretariat where symposium attendants were informed about the Network and its activities. Road Traffic Injury related material was distributed and the symposium attendants were given a demonstration of the RTIRN website, its features and how to sign up for partnership. Many new individual partners and two organizations, The Road Traffic Injuries Research and Prevention Center and Rescue 1122, joined RTIRN during this time.
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New partners sign up at the RTIRN booth! |
RTIRN Workshop: ‘Measuring the burden of injuries: a cost effective approach’
Alongside these various activities, the network also organized this pre-symposium workshop at the Aga Khan University that was attended by over 50 participants from different disciplines of health and different institutions around Karachi. The workshop was conducted by RTIRN partner Nhan Tran from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. Workshop Facilitators included Muhammad Shahid, Aga Khan University; Syed Ameer Hussain, Road Traffic Injuries Research and Prevention Center; Robyn Norton, George Institute and Adnan Hyder, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. The one day, interactive workshop focused on introducing the participants to the rationale and approaches to measuring injury burden, describing the principles of injury surveillance and discussing practical aspects of setting up a surveillance system for injuries in a developing country. Consisting of talks, discussions and case exercises, the workshop was evaluated by many participants to be of good use and applicability.
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RTIRN Partner Nhan Tran at the Workshop |
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Nhan works with participants during case-exercises |
The resource material and presentations from the workshop can be found here.