DOHA: Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Trauma Center at Hamad General Hospital (HGH) has begun two research studies to raise awareness of the prevention of road and workplace injuries.
The studies focus on promoting children’s safety on the road and identifying complex factors that lead to occupational or workplace injuries.
Research collaborators in their respective grants held their first meeting to discuss aspects of the research studies, including objectives, methodologies, timeliness and expectations.
The centre was recently awarded over $1.7m in research grants by Qatar National Research Fund’s National Priorities Research Programme for two studies: Young Kids in Safe Seats (Y-KISS) Qatar Project: A Randomised Study to Increase Child Restraint Use in Qatar and A Unified Registry for Workplace Injury Prevention in Qatar.
Collaborators include representatives from HMC, Supreme Council of Health, Primary Health Care Corporation, the Ministry of Labour, Qatar Red Crescent and Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, the US.
Speaking at the launch of the grants, Dr Hassan Al Thani, Head of the centre, said: “The two grants are an important embodiment of our belief that our most important work must take place outside the confines of the operating theatre, emergency room and intensive care unit.
“Y-KISS study will analyse risk factors for child passenger injury to inform educational programmes for families to increase the use of child restraints and promoting children’s safety on the road,” said Dr Ruben Peralta, Senior Consultant Surgeon and Director, HMC’s Trauma and Critical Care Fellowship Programme, an international expert in road safety and lead principal investigator of the study.
Dr Rafael Consunji, Director, Hamad Injury Prevention Programme at HGH and lead principal investigator of the unified registry grant, said, “The creation of a unified registry for workplace injury prevention will help us identify complex factors that lead to occupational or workplace injuries, and inform stakeholders of areas or factors that need to be addressed or corrected to reduce the burden of workplace injuries.” The Peninsula
