At a glance
View the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston ICRC profile and grantee research projects. ICRCs study ways to prevent injuries and violence and work with community partners to put research findings into action. They focus on three core functions: research, training, and outreach.
Contact Information
Center Name: Violence and Injury Prevention Research (VIPR) Center: A Texas Medical Center Collaborative
Director: Jeff R. Temple, PhD
Address: 1941 East Rd; Houston, TX 77054
Phone: 713-486-2500
Email: Jeff.R.Temple@uth.tmc.edu
Website: under construction
Instagram: @TMCVIPR
X: @TMCVIPR
Facebook: TMCVIPR
Overview
VIPR’s vision is to be a worldwide leader in equity-focused violence and injury prevention through research, outreach, training, and education. Our mission is to eliminate the burden of violence and injury by promoting optimal health and increasing the number of researchers, practitioners, decision-makers, and community agencies who detect, attend to, and support developing and implementing effective prevention and intervention programs. VIPR focuses on intentional injuries, centering on health equity, shared risk and protective factors across the social ecology, integrating research, education, and outreach within a community-based participatory model, and emphasizing implementation science.
Goals
- Integrate an interdisciplinary team of experts in injury and violence prevention from two institutions within the world-renowned Texas Medical Center to conduct and disseminate innovative research and provide technical expertise to prevent injury and violence effectively.
- Build the scientific base for the prevention of and response to injury and violence.
- Foster partnerships and building coalitions in the community by a) integrating outreach into Center-sponsored research, b) creating and disseminating equitable communication products, and education/training materials, and c) facilitating community capacity building.
- Develop and implement training, educational, and technical assistance opportunities from a fair and just perspective for students, trainees, community partners, and practitioners to plan, implement, and evaluate effective injury and violence prevention programs, practices, and policies.
Advancing Injury and Violence Prevention
- Adverse Childhood Experiences
- Child maltreatment
- Exposure to interpersonal and community violence
- Foster youth
- Children of justice-involved parents
- Child maltreatment
- Interpersonal violence and injuries across the Lifespan
- Youth/dating violence
- Partner violence
- Elder abuse
- Firearm violence
- Youth/dating violence
- Intrapersonal violence and injuries
- Suicide
- Self-Injury
- Suicide
- Occupational health and injury
2024 ICRC Grantee Research Projects - VIPR
Core Research Projects
- Firearm Violence
- Youth Violence
- Suicide
- Adverse Childhood Experiences
Core Areas
Outreach Core: The principles of collective impact, an approach for creating large-scale social change, will guide VIPR's Outreach Core. This core will focus on 1) translating findings from VIPR investigators into practical solutions, disseminating research findings and recommendations to appropriate audiences, and working towards systems change through collective impact models, 2) creating and disseminating equitable communication products and education/training materials, and 3) facilitating community capacity building, including through outreach grants to community organizations.
Training and Education Core: VIPR's Training and Education Core (TE Core) activities will be guided by the principles of collective impact, using a cooperative framework centered on those most impacted by injury and violence. The TE Core aims to build the injury and violence prevention capacity of healthcare professionals, social service providers, educators, researchers, and students in Texas and across the state, bordering states and the nation as a whole.