May 04, 2011
The UNC Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill presented a scholarship and recognized leading children’s advocates at a recent event held this spring.

The center’s inaugural John D. Butts Scholarship was awarded to UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health doctoral student Lawrence Scholl to facilitate his work on youth suicide. Scholl studies in the School’s Department of Health Behavior and Health Education.
 
IPRC recently created the $1000 scholarship to honor retired chief medical examiner John D. Butts, MD – a leader in forensic medicine and a longtime collaborator with the center on studies aimed at reducing the nearly 5,000 deaths in North Carolina each year.

Dr. Carol Runyan

Dr. Carol Runyan

When recognizing Dr. Butts, Carol Runyan, MPH, PhD, said he had been a stalwart leader. Runyan, director of the Injury Prevention Research Center, is a professor of health behavior and health education at the public health school.

Runyan said Butts worked to ensure that death investigations were conducted in a way to facilitate a better understanding of the causes of deaths and to further injury prevention. He also worked with the injury center to improve data quality, and he has nurtured numerous students in their studies of injury deaths.

For their significant and durable contributions to injury and violence prevention in North Carolina, the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center presented awards to Tom Vitaglione and the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force.

Vitaglione, currently a senior fellow with Action for Children NC, was recognized for his many years of statewide leadership in child injury prevention. “[Tom’s] efforts have improved the lives of children through the implementation of traffic safety legislation, fire and burn prevention, youth employment protections, poisoning prevention and child maltreatment prevention,” Runyan said.Another award recognized the Child Fatality Task Force, a state-mandated legislative study commission. Since the task force’s inception in 1991, the child death rate in North Carolina has declined 30 percent, resulting in an estimated 8,000 children living to adulthood who otherwise would have died. Achievements made in part due to the task force’s recommendations include contributions to the passage of child booster and infant car seat laws, graduated drivers’ licenses and child welfare restructuring.
An honorable mention was presented to Fred Brason, president of the Lazarus Project, a community-based drug overdose prevention program serving Wilkes County and western North Carolina.
# # #

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.

 

 

RELATED PAGES
CONTACT INFORMATION
Gillings Admissions: 233 Rosenau Hall, (919) 445-1170
Student Affairs: 263 Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-2499
Dean's Office: 170 Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-3215
Business and Administration: 170 Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-3215
Academic Affairs: 307 Rosenau Hall, (919) 843-8044
Inclusive Excellence: 207B Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-7430
Room Reservations
Facilities


135 Dauer Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400