Injury Prevention and Public Health: Practical Knowledge, Skills, and Strategies , Second Edition

Tom Christoffel, JD

Tom Christoffel is a lawyer by training, with particular interest in the use of law to protect the public from injury. He has been an educator for most of his career, including twenty years on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. He has developed and taught courses on public health law, injury prevention, government regulation, health care politics, policy analysis, and related subjects, and is co-developer of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s course modules on The Legal Basis of Public Health. He currently holds adjunct faculty appointments at the UIC School of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, and the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Professor Christoffel’s books include Health and the Law: A Handbook for Health Professionals and Protecting the Public: Legal Issues in Injury Prevention (with Stephen P. Teret). He is also the author of numerous book chapters and journal articles on law, public health, injury prevention, evaluation methodology, medical peer review, and other topics. Professor Christoffel is a member of the Massachusetts Bar, and past chair of the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of the American Public Health Association. He is currently a consultant and freelance writer in Boulder, Colorado.

Susan Gallagher, MPH

Susan Gallagher is a nationally and internationally recognized specialist in injury and violence prevention. As a public health researcher and a practitioner for the last 30 years, much of her work has focused on the epidemiology of child and adolescent injury and violence, traffic safety, teen worker safety, injuries in the school environment, suicide prevention, the development of surveillance system methods, community-based program development, implementation and evaluation, and training initiatives at the national, state, and local levels.  She has also played a central role in the development of standards for state level injury prevention programs and assessment teams for STIPDA. She has co-authored more than 30 peer reviewed journal articles on injury prevention and is the co-author of the book: Injury Prevention and Public Health – Practical Knowledge, Skills and Strategies published by Jones and Bartlett.  In addition, she has developed numerous technical assistance products targeting practitioners in residential, school, health, and day care settings, as well as staff in state public health agencies and members of professional organizations.

Ms Gallagher is a Distinguished Scholar and Senior Scientist at Education Development Center, Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts, where she has been a staff member since 1990. She received a Bachelors degree in Psychology from Simmons College and a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University.  Ms. Gallagher holds appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and in the Department of Socio-Behavioral Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health.   

Ms Gallagher has served on many state and national advisory groups, is a past chair of the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of the American Public Health Association, and served on the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine committee that produced the report Reducing the Burden of Injury.  In 2003 she was chosen to be a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and worked in the U.S. Congress in the office of Senator Dick Durbin.  Her portfolio included Global AIDS, TB and malaria, all medical research (CDC, NIH, and DOD) and mental health issues.  She assisted Senator Durbin in introducing a public health workforce bill to provide scholarships and loan repayment for individuals working in state and local health agencies. 

Ms Gallagher is the Founding Director of the Statewide Comprehensive Injury Prevention Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Children’s Safety Network National Injury and Violence Prevention Resource Center.  She, also, is a co-founder of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the international journal Injury Prevention.