Injury prevention is in danger from federal cuts

In everyday horror stories, Johns Hopkins professor Susan Baker saw preventable tragedies. Maryland needs Baker’s life-saving lessons now more than ever. The state suffers the second-highest pedestrian fatality rates in the mid-Atlantic, pointing to broader traffic safety concerns. Baltimore drivers are the third-riskiest in the nation, and the city is plagued by mass overdoses. The Injury Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protected us from these injuries — the leading cause of death among people ages 1-44. Now it’s on the president’s chopping block. If it dies, people will die with it. Baker’s fingerprints are all over the center. Her legacy offers insight to save it, and to preserve the safety it defended.

Separate the politics from the solutions, treat injury prevention as a public good, and start with children — whose leading killer is road traffic crashes. Today’s car seats were a figment of the imagination when Baker began her career in 1966. Children rode in their mother’s laps in cars and became human airbags. Baker noticed a pattern in death rates of babies under six months, who died more often than older children. Doctors relied on her research to advocate for car safety seat legislation. 

Together with her protégés at Hopkins, Baker shaped injury prevention. The CDC scaled it. Soon, safety silently cropped up in every corner: airbags in cars, safety caps on medicine bottles and smoke detectors on ceilings. The government required these things — and we came to expect them. Deaths from injuries in America were halved.

The Injury Center powered that progress, along with others that have lost crucial staff: the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Occupational Safety and Healht Administration and the Department of Transportation. The Injury Center contributed to the successful prevention of opioid overdoses — lowering deaths by 25% in the past two years. The antithesis of federal bloat, over 80% of the center’s funding goes back to all 50 states and territories. For over 30 years, it provided the data, funding and expert guidance that shapes research and practice globally.

We probably won’t notice if the Injury Center and other supporting institutions aren’t funded — until we do. When a loved one endures a car crash, overdose or suicide, we will lament — how did this happen? It’ll be too late. Beyond shouldering the unfathomable emotional toll, families, employers and insurers will pay in lost productivity, medical costs and legal battles, feeling the pain in their pocketbooks. The injuries that kill and maim us cost a whopping $4.2 trillion annually — over 14% of our GDP.  

The effects will reverberate around the world, where injuries kill 4.4 million people annually. Three of the top five causes of death for young people ages 5-29 are injury-related: road traffic injuries, suicide and homicide. Drowning kills over 300,000 people annually. Opioids are responsible for most drug-related deaths, yet 90% of people who need treatment for opioid dependence don’t receive it. These statistics — and the people behind them — will be left vulnerable without the Injury Center.

Injury prevention fails if it’s not institutionalized. This reckoning resulted from “Injury in America,” a seminal book from a committee chaired by former CDC Director Bill Foege and vice-chaired by Baker. It led Congress to fund the CDC Injury Center. But what Congress gave, Congress can take away.

Preventable injuries and deaths threaten us regardless of how we vote. Nonetheless, the White House wants the Injury Center to become extinct. The Senate Appropriations Committee pushed back, including funding for the center in its Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill. The House followed. They have yet to pass these bills. The fate of the center is in jeopardy.

Some public health leaders are doing their best to stand guard over science, like former CDC Director Susan Monarez. They can only stand so tall for so long. 

How will we stand beside them, to defend the safety that defines our freedom? Baker shows us that safety is not a gift — it is a right, earned and secured through science and advocacy. Born in Baltimore, Baker’s legacy keeps us alive. Washington must preserve it — to protect us.

To keep America safe, get in touch with your member of Congress. Advocate on social media to remind politicians that prevention saves money and lives. Write a letter to the editor in the local paper. 

Implement Baker’s legacy in your own community. Attend a town council meeting or advocate with the PTA. Lead a bike bus or walk and bike to school day — a joyous way to start the day, showcasing the benefits of safe roads to politicians and parents alike. Show the kids that we’re fighting for their lives, so they’re not forced to fight themselves.

We must stop the epitaph of the CDC’s Injury Center from being written — before it becomes our own. 

Natalie Draisin is the director of the North America Office and United Nations representative for the FIA Foundation. Draisin is an external affiliate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she completed her master’s degree in public health and has been mentored by Sue Baker.