Flowing from Barry Pless' response,1 I believe there are 4 facts that must be shared.
1. There are evaluations of the SMARTRISK Heroes program, including 2 comprehensive evaluations conducted by qualified, independent organizations.2,3 The evaluations are consistent in their results, indicating that the majority of students who attended a SMARTRISK Heroes program:
· expressed a new awareness of the implications of risk as it relates to injuries
· indicated a willingness to modify certain behaviours to reduce the prospect of sustaining an injury
· learned and retained core messages and had a better understanding of risk as it relates to causing injury well after the Heroes presentation.
2. Our work with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has nothing to do with the Heroes program. Government funding is usually clearly defined and earmarked for very specific activities to meet certain objectives. It is not for us to dictate to any government ministry or agency how it should spend its money; rather, our job is to ensure that injury prevention programs and initiatives continue to move ahead in breadth and scope.
3. Sharing evaluations “through peer-reviewed publication” is a noble concept that is more an academic exercise than a professional necessity. Most well-conducted evaluations of programs actually do not appear in peer-reviewed journals. Evaluations of our programs are shared widely through conferences and other appropriate fora. The point, simply, is that it is more important to have sound, reliable, accessible and ongoing evaluations than to have the satisfaction of authoring a paper.
4. Pless notes that the “main target” of his article was the ministry, not SMARTRISK. As professionals committed to preventing injuries and saving lives, we should not be “targeting” any person or organization. Rather, governments, academics, the not-for-profit sector and the private sector should be working together, more closely than ever, to help individuals and organizations change attitudes and behaviours to further reduce unnecessary injuries.
Carol Jardine Chair Board of Directors SMARTRISK Toronto, Ont.