The Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit Publishes Evaluation of MENTOR-VIP Program

Every year, nearly 6 million deaths are caused by intentional and unintentional injuries, including road traffic injuries, burns, drowning, falls, poisonings, suicides and homicides, which together account for about 10% of global deaths and 15% of global burden of disabilities, as well as significant socio-economic losses. Yet despite these numbers, violence and injury prevention has not received adequate attention from policy makers, program planners and donors.

In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched MENTOR-VIP, a mentoring program to address this growing global burden of violence and injuries, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The goal of the program was to develop human resource capacity through a 12-month mentoring arrangement between individual violence and injury prevention (VIP) experts (mentors) and less-experienced injury practitioners (mentees).

Recently, Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit team members, including senior project coordinator, Shirin Wadhwaniya and director Adnan Hyder helped publish a study that reviewed the first five years of the program (2007-2011) using a systems analysis and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) framework. The paper also discussed program findings and made recommendations. Also participating were injury prevention colleagues G. Gururaj from the Department of Epidemiology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Nero Sciences in Bangalore, India and David Meddings from WHO’s Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability, among others.

The study resulted in four recommendations to strengthen the program, which included improving the selection and matching process for mentor-mentee pairs, training mentors on e-mentoring, conducting a special orientation for mentees and maintaining open communication throughout the program.

E-mentoring for violence and injury prevention: Early lessons from a global programme,” can be found in Global Public Health. To read the full report, click here.