Our Impact on Injury and Violence Prevention

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) prevention impact

The Injury Center is the leader in ACEs prevention and mitigation efforts. We drive data to action to create safe, stable, and nurturing environments for all children. We have a legacy of successful initiatives that have built the framework and infrastructure for our newest investments:

• Funded 12 recipients for the Preventing ACEs: Data to Action program to improve states' data collection capabilities and implementation of prevention strategies.
• Tracked ACEs and health outcomes through two national-level surveys.
  • As of 2020, all states have collected data on ACEs among adults at least once.
  • As of 2023, national data on ACEs will be collected among adolescents for the first time.
• Supported ACEs monitoring and research from more than 50 grantees in health departments and academic institutions.

Overdose prevention impact

Injury Center scientists first published data on the growing epidemic of opioid overdose in 2006. Since then, we have been at the forefront of tracking the complex and changing nature of the drug overdose epidemic and implementing proven prevention strategies. New CDC data indicate US overdose deaths decreased in 2023 compared to the previous year for the first time since 2018. Activities include the following:

• Awarded new 5-year cooperative agreements in 2023 under two distinct Overdose Data to Action programs to reduce drug overdoses and the impact of related harms.
  • Funded 90 jurisdictions–49 states, 40 localities, and the District of Columbia.
  • Successes included using real-time information from drug samples to understand local drug supply and tailored local prevention and harm reduction education and programming.
• Administered the Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program—the nation's leading effort to mobilize communities to prevent and reduce substance use among teens.
  • Funded more than 750 DFCs in the United States in 2023.
  • Met the goal of significant declines in youth use/misuse of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and prescription drugs among DFC coalitions in 2022.

Suicide prevention impact

Suicide remains a leading cause of death in the United States and requires urgent public health action. The Injury Center is working toward a vision of "no lives lost to suicide" by prioritizing data, science, action, and collaboration. Our Suicide Prevention Resource for Action and the 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention guide our work. We use a whole-of-society approach to suicide prevention. Our work helps:

• Reduce suicide among disproportionately affected groups like middle-aged adults, children and teens, LGBTQ+ people, veterans, and tribal communities through Comprehensive Suicide Prevention strategies.
  • Funded 24 programs and supported 4 tribes in implementing comprehensive public health approaches to suicide prevention.
  • Collected near-real-time data from emergency departments on suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts from 20 recipients. These data helped states respond to suicide clusters and tracked trends in suicidal behavior among adolescents.

Violence prevention impact

Violence is an urgent public health problem. Our goal is to stop violence before it begins. Prevention requires understanding the factors that influence violence. The Injury Center supports research, programs, and practices that reduce violence and its health and social consequences. Our violence prevention work includes:

• Collecting data from all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, to CDC's National Violence Death Reporting System to help define public health priorities, develop and evaluate programs and policies, and research state-level violent deaths.
• Supporting communities and local health departments to prevent multiple forms of youth violence. Homicide is the third leading cause of death for young people ages 10–24 in the United States. We collaborate with five academic Youth Violence Prevention Centers to advance youth violence research, and eight public health recipients to implement evidence-based prevention strategies through the Preventing Violence Affecting Young Lives (PREVAYL) initiative.
• Addressing firearm safety as a public health issue because in the United States, more than 130 people die from firearm-related injuries every day, and even more sustain non-fatal injuries. Activities include supporting 34 research grants focused on gun violence prevention and funding 12 state health departments to collect surveillance data in near real-time on emergency visits for nonfatal firearm injuries.
• Advancing public health practice by awarding continuing education credits to over 9,500 users in 2023 and receiving nearly 2 million page views on the VetoViolence website.

Injury prevention impact

Unintentional and self-directed injuries are a leading cause of death in the United States. The Injury Center's mission is to prevent injuries by connecting data, science, and action with these initiatives:

• Studying effective strategies to prevent injuries and violence with nine Injury Control Research Centers (ICRCs) community partners to ensure their research findings translate into practical actions and interventions.
• Funding 26 states through the Core State Injury Prevention Program (Core SIPP) to prioritize the prevention of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), traumatic brain injuries, transportation-related injuries, and other injury topics that are of local concern.
• Partnering to implement strategies to prevent drowning, the number one cause of death for children ages 1–4 and the second leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 5-14, by addressing system-level barriers to accessing basic swimming and water safety skills training, and collecting data to understand drowning risk.
• Preventing older adult falls, the leading cause of unintentional injury and injury death for Americans ages 65 years and older, by raising awareness with education campaigns and providing tools and resources for health care professionals to make fall prevention a routine part of clinical care.
• Preventing traumatic brain injury (TBI), a major cause of death and disability for people of all ages, and improving health outcomes for survivors of TBI by building education initiatives and trainings, conducting surveillance and research, and releasing guidelines on TBI identification and management.
• Preventing injury and death from motor vehicle crashes, a leading cause of death in the United States, through education and intervention; providing state-specific data, resources, and proven strategies to help state decision makers select effective prevention interventions to reduce motor vehicle crash deaths.

Leading causes of death

Watch an animation of the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. for ages 1-44 from 1981-2022.