Additional Affiliations

Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UBC
Co-Director and Spokesperson, The Community Against Preventable Injuries

Dr. Ian Pike is the Director of the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UBC, Associate Scientist at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and Co-executive Director and Spokesperson for The Community Against Preventable Injuries – an injury prevention social marketing organization. His academic training is in kinesiology, health promotion and injury prevention, with particular emphasis on population health and the workplace. He has some 30 years experience in injury prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion, and has worked in the private, not-for-profit, and academic sectors. For his leadership and work in developing a province-wide health promotion and injury prevention program for the health care sector, Dr. Pike was recognized with an international award of excellence by the Association for Worksite Health Promotion.

Dr. Pike has been an invited speaker and expert participant at numerous health, wellness, and injury prevention conferences and meetings. He is published in the academic and professional journals, and serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the journal, Injury Prevention.

Additional Affiliations

Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, with a cross appointment in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UBC

Research Interests

• Sport and recreation injury
• Concussion/traumatic brain injury
• Knowledge implementation, education, and awareness

Dr. Shelina Babul focuses primarily on sport and recreation evidence-based research and knowledge implementation, with a specialization in concussions/traumatic brain injuries and their prevention, recognition, treatment, and management. She is the Director of BC Children’s Hospital Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (BC CHIRPP) and an Investigator with both BC Children’s Hospital and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at UBC.

Dr. Babul chairs the BC Concussion Advisory Network (BC CAN) and is a member of several provincial and national concussion advisory committees, including Parachute’s National Concussion Subcommittee and the Canadian Traumatic Brain Injury Research Consortium. She received the 2016 BC Hockey Safety Award and the 2014 Prevention and Awareness Award from the Brain Injury Association of Canada.

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Additional Affiliations

Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics and School of Population & Public Health, UBC
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute

Research Interests

• Outdoor risky play
• Parenting perceptions of risk and safety
• Fathering
• Burden of injury
• Nature-based play
• Play space design

In addition to her affiliations with the BCIRPU, University of British Columbia, and the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Dr. Mariana Brussoni is also a board member of the Child & Nature Alliance of Canada. Trained as a developmental psychologist, she investigates child injury prevention. Current research interests include the influence of geographic, cultural and social places on parenting related to risk and safety; developmental importance of children’s risky play; the impact of injury on children’s health-related quality of life; injuries among Aboriginal populations; and injury surveillance.

Mariana’s research has been featured extensively in national and international media. She currently leads CIHR-funded research to develop an index of the playability of the built environment; and Lawson Foundation-funded research to develop an online tool to reframe parents’ risk perceptions with the goal of facilitating children’s access to nature-based risky play. Further details can be seen at http://brussonilab.ca/.

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Research Interests

• Data analysis and visualization
• Cost modeling
• Prediction modeling
• Injury prevention and surveillance

Mr. Alex Zheng joined the BCIRPU in October 2017 as a Biostatistician/Researcher. A graduate of the Masters of Science in Biostatistics program at the University of Toronto, Alex brings over seven years of research experience from his time at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His main role is to provide statistical support and analytical prowess to the many projects conducted at the Unit.

Ms. Atousa Zargaran is the Canadian Hospital Injury Reporting & Prevention Program (CHIRPP) Coordinator. This is an injury surveillance program run by Health Canada tracking all injuries and poisonings seen in the Emergency Department of BC Children’s Hospital.

For any requests concerning injury statistics associated with children up to the age of 17 years, please contact Atousa for a report.

Research Interests

• Children’s outdoor play
• Children’s independent mobility
• Children’s boundaries
• Qualitative research
• Gender

Ms. Christina Han is a research coordinator working with Dr. Mariana Brussoni, and is responsible for the overall management and implementation of two nationally-funded projects – Playability and Go Play Outside! – from data collection to data analysis and dissemination. Previously, she worked with Dr. John Oliffe at the UBC School of Nursing, managing a series of qualitative research projects on depression and suicide, from which she has successfully published 20 peer-reviewed articles (5 first-authored).

Since Christina joined Dr. Brussoni’s lab in 2016, she has shifted her research focus to children’s outdoor play and independent mobility. She is currently completing her PhD in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP) at UBC, supervised by Dr. Brussoni (Pediatrics and SPPH) and Dr. Laurie Ford (ECPS). Her PhD research investigates children’s perceived neighbourhood boundaries using children’s narratives, photos, and map drawings. She is particularly interested in understanding how children feel about and manage their boundaries, and finding emerging patterns across different age groups, gender, and neighbourhood.

Research Interests

• Falls prevention for community-dwelling older adults
• Road safety
• Youth suicide and self-harm prevention

Working in collaboration with the Provincial Manager – Injury and Falls Prevention, Ms. Denise Beaton coordinates multiple projects, supporting team efforts with internal and external partners on ongoing programs and initiatives.

She brings six years of experience in research and project management. During the course of her MA in Gerontology from SFU she was a graduate research assistant with Gerontological Education, Research & Outreach at the UBC School of Nursing, the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, and the Canadian Centre for Elder Law. Denise is also a Master’s Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) Trainee with the Canadian Frailty Network. She disseminated research findings fourteen times from 2012-2017, at national conferences and a special report interview with Peter Mansbridge for CBC News: The National.

Prior to moving to British Columbia, Denise was the VP of Operations & Events with Icon Vision Media in Montreal, overseeing day-to-day operational matters and execution of events at a specialized advertising company for high profile international events. In her home province of Prince Edward Island, Denise was the project director and partners liaison with Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing, and the conference coordinator for the Culture, Multimedia, Technology and Cognition (CMTC) Centre.

Ms. Dian Leung has worked with the BCIRPU since 2007. Following the completion of her Masters in Education in 2006 at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, her primary role focuses in administration at the University of British Columbia. At the Unit, she has the opportunity to provide administrative and financial support to student, staff, and faculty while working with UBC and hospital administration groups. She supports injury prevention and health promotion by organizing the BCIRPU webinar series and providing secretariat services to the BC Injury Prevention Alliance and BC Injury Prevention Committee. Along with her co-workers, Dian is a recipient of the 2014 President Staff Award. She is proud to be working with an amazing team.

Dr. Samarakkody joined the BCIRPU in 2015 and is responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing community injury prevention initiatives and campaigns. She serves as the ThinkFirst Vancouver Chapter Coordinator for the Brain Waves program.

She completed her medical training, and her Masters and Doctorate in Community Medicine from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, and went on to pursue her postdoctoral fellowship at the Monash Injury Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Samarakkody has extensive experience working as a primary care and a community physician and has worked in collaboration with WHO and UNICEF.

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Research Interests

• Data analysis and manipulation
• Data visualizations
• Injury surveillance
• Injury prevention
• Abusive head trauma
• Cost of injury

Ms. Fahra Rajabali has been at the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit since 2000, following the completion of her Masters of Science in Health Information Science at the University of Warwick, England. Although she wears many “hats,” Fahra’s primary role is working on data at the Unit, including data analysis and visualizations. She is also the Evaluation Coordinator for the Period of Purple Crying BC initiative. Other roles include injury surveillance and conference planning. Fahra is the Unit Liaison for Northern, Interior, and Island Health Authorities. Along with her co-workers, Fahra was a recipient of the UBC President’s Staff Award in 2014.

Additional Affiliations

Senior Program Manager, The Community Against Preventable Injuries

Ms. Jennifer Smith has been a Research Coordinator at BCIRPU and Senior Program Manager for The Community Against Preventable Injuries (Preventable) since October 2016. She first joined BCIRPU in 2013 as a Highly Qualified Professional affiliated with the AUTO21 Networks of Centres of Excellence. Jennifer’s work with AUTO21 involved researching the epidemiology of child occupant and young driver fatalities.

Research Interests

• Early childhood development
• Community engagement
• Knowledge translation

Ms. Karen Sadler joined the BCIRPU in October 2017 as the Manager for Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC. Karen oversees the daily operation of the Period of PURPLE Crying, a public education program that supports parents and caregivers in their understanding of early increased infant crying and reduces the incidence of SBS in BC. Karen has come from the early years non-profit sector in Vancouver, where she facilitated local and public sector collaboration towards a more integrated system of services and supports for young children and their families. Karen volunteers in a number of school and sport associations roles.

Research Interests

• Injury surveillance
• Program evaluation
• Project management
• Injury prevention

Ms. Kate Turcotte has been at the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit since 1999, following the completion of her Masters of Science in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa. Her role at the Unit comprises supporting Dr. Shelina Babul’s concussion knowledge implementation program, as well as project management, grant and report writing, injury surveillance, program evaluation, and conference planning. Kate is the Unit Liaison for Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health, and she provides secretariat support for the BC Injury Prevention Committee and the BC Concussion Advisory Network. Along with her co-workers, Kate was a recipient of the UBC President’s Staff Award in 2014.

Ms. Megan Oakey joined the BCIRPU and the BC Centre for Disease Control in 2016 as Provincial Manager for Injury and Falls Prevention. Megan has over 11 years’ experience working in public health in injury prevention, healthy schools, physical activity, healthy eating, and healthy weights, leading both health promotion and clinical practice projects.

Megan is the current co-chair of the Provincial Public Health Injury Prevention Committee, which provides guidance and recommendations on injury prevention to the Provincial Public Health Executive Committee, the Ministry of Health, and the Provincial Health Officer. She also co-chairs the BC Injury Prevention Alliance, chairs the BC Falls and Injury Prevention Coalition, and is an active member of the BC Road Safety Strategy. Megan received her Bachelor of Human Kinetics in Exercise Science from UBC  and her Masters of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.

Research Interests

• Early child development
• Physical literacy
• Knowledge translation

Ms. Rachel Ramsden is a Research Assistant with the BCIRPU,  focusing on the research areas of public health, injury prevention, and knowledge translation. While completing her Master of Public Health from UBC in 2015, Rachel joined the team at the BCIRPU to develop research reports on concussions among children and youth. Since then, she has also worked on updating the Injury Data Online Tool (iDOT) and is currently completing a project on occupational asbestos exposure. When not working, Rachel can be found on the soccer field either playing with her women’s team or coaching the local youth players in her community.

Additional Affiliations

Media Relations, The Community Against Preventable Injuries

Ms. Samantha Bruin joined the BCIRPU in 2017 as Communications Coordinator. Her job involves enhancing the Unit’s communications strategies and supporting a variety of projects through content creation, media relations, and the creation of reports, infographics, and other communications materials. Samantha also supports the Unit’s work with The Community Against Preventable Injuries.

She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia and holds a certificate in Marketing Communications from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Samantha has over five years of experience specializing in health care communications, having held positions at Pain BC and the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences at St. Paul’s Hospital.

Sami Kruse joined the BCIRPU research team in 2009 after obtaining her Master’s in Public Health from the University of British Columbia. During her MPH, Sami worked as a part of a team developing an international tool for monitoring the implementation of child rights in early childhood. Sami’s current research focuses on injury prevention and health promotion of children and youth. In particular her interests include understanding the burden of injury, the role of parents in child injury prevention, and exploring the use of technology in child injury prevention strategies.

Samar joined BCIRPU in 2010, she’s working on a joint UBC-SFU research project aimed at developing a Visual Analytics System Dashboard for Canadian Child and Youth Injury Prevention. The new Dashboard will facilitate the storage, display and dissemination of Canadian Child and Youth injury indicators, data and research.

Additional Affiliations

Chief of Knowledge Translation, Hypothesis Journal

Research Interests

• Medical decision making and health
• Risk communication
• Socioeconomic determinants of health

Mr. Takuro Ishikawa is a doctoral student in Experimental Medicine at UBC. He holds a Master of Science in Experimental Medicine, an Honours Baccalaureate in Psychology, and graduated with honours from the BCIT Technical Communication associate degree program.

Tak uses decision theory as instruments to address social issues, particularly in public health. Before joining the lab, Tak was a consultant to the United Nations Development Plan; advised the Inter-American Development Bank in violence prevention; and developed and evaluated road safety campaigns in Colombia. Tak is currently a UBC Public Scholar, and has been a CIHR/Heart and Stroke Foundation Fellow in Population Interventions for Chronic Disease Prevention, as well as a Highly Qualified professional with AUTO21.

Before becoming a graduate student, Takuro was a road safety research advisor in Colombia; consulted for United Nations Development Plan in economic development projects; and advised the Inter-American Development Bank on harmonization of crime and violence indicators for 14 Latin American countries. He is a UBC Public Scholar, a Heart and Stroke Foundation/CIHR Fellow in Population Interventions for Chronic Disease Prevention, and a Highly Qualified Professional with AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence. His research has been published in top tier periodicals such as the American Journal of Public Health, and was recognized with a first honours award by AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence.