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The New Hampshire Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (NHPS)
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NHPS Granted AAP, Allstate Teen Safe Driving Grant
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Don’t Text and Drive – It Can Wait
The Injury Prevention Center at Children's Hospital at Dartmouth teamed up with AT&T to send a powerful message to teenagers at the three schools involved in the Allstate Foundation’s Teen Safe Driving Grant Program — a message that safety experts hope will spread. The message is don’t text and drive. It can wait.
Distracted driving is a growing problem. Almost 22% of the crashes in New Hampshire last year were caused by distraction and drivers under the age of 20 have the highest proportion of these crashes. Of the 90 people killed on New Hampshire roads last year, 14 died because of crashes caused by distracted drivers.
To combat the problem, the three high schools conducted different activities to focus on the message. These activities included creating message boards, bumper stickers and boxes to hold phones to keep them out of reach when driving. Students at each of the schools watched AT&T’s video, It Can Wait (http://www.itcanwait.com ) and many took the pledge to not text and drive.
Howard Hedegard, the highway safety specialist at CHaD’s Injury Prevention Center, and Steve Gratton, the program director for Allstate Foundation's Teen Safe Driving Program believe that the average teenager wants to be a good driver but doesn’t always understand the risks. The hope is that if they hear the message enough and in different ways that it will influence them.
The Allstate Foundation’s Teen Safe Driving Program is conducted in New Hampshire in conjunction with the New Hampshire chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
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The New Hampshire Pediatric Society is pleased to announce that, through the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Allstate Foundation has awarded a $25,000 grant to the society to promote a safer driving experience for New Hampshire teen novice drivers. New Hampshire is one of eight states to receive this funding from the Allstate Foundation.
In 2009, New Hampshire 16 and 17 year old drivers represented just over 2 per cent of all licensed drivers. They were involved in 11% of the crashes. This reality is consistent with national trends.
Two primary activities will be funded through this grant. Because of the high crash rate experienced by novice teen drivers, one effort will be to promote the importance of enhancing New Hampshire’s current graduated licensing (GDL) provisions. Graduated licensing is a learning process designed to introduce novice teen drivers to the driving experience in a low-risk way, as they become more mature and develop their driving skills. Research indicates positive effects on the crash experience of young drivers in states that have strong GDL programs that include night time driving and passenger limitations based on established best practice.
Funds received from this grant will also allow for the creation of teen safe driving programs within four New Hampshire high schools. Currently three schools have been chosen to participate including Spaulding High School in Rochester, Dover High and Epping High.
The high school programs will be designed to educate teens on the importance of always making the best choices that they can, both as drivers and as passengers, and the importance of wearing seat belts each and every time they are in a vehicle. Another emphasis will be to create an increased awareness that unsafe choices can and do result in life changing outcomes.
For more information, please contact Steve Gratton, Teen Safe Driving Program Coordinator, by e-mail at sgratton@tds.net or 603-848-2131 or Howard Hedegard, Highway Safety Specialist, Injury Prevention
Center at Dartmouth at howard.hedegard@dartmouth.edu or 603-653-8360.
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WIC Nutrition Program Implements WHO Growth Charts
October 1st, 2012, the New Hampshire WIC Program will begin using CDC’s version of the World Health Organization (WHO) Growth Charts for all children aged birth to 24 months, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (MMWR, Sept. 10, 2010;1-15)
Per CDC, the WHO growth curves provide a single international standard that represents the best description of physiological growth for all children from birth to two years of age and to establish the breastfed infant as the normative model for growth and development.
To learn more about the WHO growth charts and access the CDC online training, visit www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/who_charts.htm. The online training course, developed for health care providers, provides information on how to use the WHO growth standards to assess growth of infants and young children.
If your practice uses an electronic medical record and you are interested in updating your system, your vendor will need to access the data tables which are available on the CDC website at www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/who_charts.htm.
If you would like more information about the WIC Program in New Hampshire, contact the WIC state office (1-800-942-4321 or 603-271-4546 or wic@dhhs.state.nh.us) to request WIC outreach, nutrition education, and breastfeeding materials. A list of local WIC offices is available at www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/wic/index.htm
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The New Hampshire Pediatric Society is the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Our membership consists of over 280 dedicated physicians from across the state. Most of us are in primary care in private practice, some of us are pediatric subspecialists, some of us are based in an academic center (Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center), some of us are employed by the State of New Hampshire, some of us work in community health centers, some of us are retired. All of us are working hard to promote the, health and well-being of infants, children, and adolescents. We welcome new members and if you are a part of the AAP, you are eligible to be part of the NHPS, too. Feel free to contact the Chapter Officers and/or any NHPS fellow member for more details on how to join this well respected long standing professional group, as together, we "CAN" and "DO" make a difference.
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A child's life is like
a piece of paper on
which every person
leaves a mark.
--Chinese Proverb
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Site images provided by bigstockphoto.com; Dawn Herdson, Varina & Jay Patel, Dan Popesscu, Karen Roach, Rickl Becker-Leckrone
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