Ian Pike is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UBC, and the director of the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.
With over 40 years of experience in injury prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion, Dr. Ian Pike’s work is concentrated on establishing a society free from preventable injuries. His research focuses on the determinants of injury, including deprivation; sport and recreation; linkages between unintentional and inflicted injury as a means to creating a safety-oriented culture; child passenger safety; fire-related injury; the relationship between policies and injury, including COVID-19; and the efficacy of a social marketing campaign to reduce serious injury and death. Most recently and with support from CIHR, Dr. Pike developed a novel methodology that privileges the voices of Indigenous children and youth as a means to community injury prevention improvement.
He has successfully led five multi-year CIHR-supported research teams, including the exploration, classification and evaluation of policy indicators for primary, secondary and tertiary injury prevention among children and youth across Canada, including Indigenous children and youth. He completed a three-year project funded by Transport Canada on the use of an evidence-informed social marketing campaign to reduce injuries and deaths among recreational boaters in BC. Most recently, Dr. Pike is leading two CIHR-supported teams to investigate the impact of COVID-19 polices on unintentional and inflicted injuries among children and youth.
Dr. Pike is also the co-executive director of The Community Against Preventable Injuries (aka Preventable), an innovative social marketing organization working to change attitudes and behaviours toward preventable injuries. He has been recognized as an expert in injury prevention and social marketing, and has conducted over 100 interviews with local, national and international news outlets on topics including drowning prevention, fire safety, road safety, work-related injury, and unintentional poisoning. Dr. Pike has been formally recognized for his work with a number of awards, including the UBC President’s Award for Public Education Through Media, the Canadian Fire Chiefs of Canada Fire Researcher of the Year, and the UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award for contributions to the community and to the university.
He holds master’s and doctoral degrees in the science of physical education, sport, and recreation (exercise physiology and kinesiology). After completing his MSc and PhD at the University of Alberta, Dr. Pike led the Lower Mainland chapter of the Canadian Red Cross before joining UBC in 2004.
