Customer Reviews

While We Were Sleeping: Success Stories in Injury and Violence Prevention

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This book is an excellent read for anyone who is searching for reasons to believe that public health activism can make a meaningful difference in our world. It is well-written, carefully researched, and has an intimate, accessible tone. I am going to recommend this book to all of my public health students and to my colleagues. I can easily imagine that I will be drawing information from it and referring to it time and time again for my own work. This is a much-needed contribution from an academic perspective, but also simply a fun read.

Dr. Hemenway, a professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, has done the field a real service with this book. The title comes from his favorite fairy tale, in which elves help a poor shoemaker by stitching beautiful pairs of shoes while he sleeps so that he may sell them by day and earn enough money to feed his family (and buy more leather for more shoes). The idea is that public health workers have been those unseen helpers who have assisted us all, without credit, without personal gain. Injuries have been reduced dramatically over the past century, but not by magic. Real people have labored hard to make it happen. Faculty teaching courses in injury prevention will find this a useful addition to their syllabi. If you work in public health, this book is also perfect to help your parent, partner or offspring understand what you do--and why you do it. It also may help inspire the next generation of researchers and practitioners so that we may all enjoy future gains in reducing the toll that injuries take.

While We Were Sleeping is a thoroughly enjoyable read that highlights the successes and impact of injury prevention efforts over a broad spectrum of time and places. It will be inspiring and motivating to anyone in public health, and hopefully to those considering a career in the field of injury prevention or public health in general. It is a particularly unique work in that the stories provide solid examples of the often-immeasurable impact of prevention efforts. For those of us in the field who are experiencing increasing pressure to find ways to describe and substantiate the impact of injury prevention research and practice efforts, this book reinforces the value and reward of doing so; and in knowing we are making a difference.

David Hemenway has written a gem! As a public health professor specializing in injury prevention, I LOVED this book -- for multiple reasons. First, depsite more than 20 years in the field, I learned a lot. Second, though it might seem that this is just a book for injury professionals, it is much much more than that. It is a wonderful primer on the principles of public health that every public health student and professional should read -- as should anyone interested in understanding the approach of public health to problem solving. Third, this is also an important and excellent introduction to the problems and progress in injury control -- a grossly under-recognized and poorly understood aspect of public health. Students of injury control should read this to gain greater familiarity with many of the accomplishments that have been made over the years through incremental changes developed via multiple innovative and determined people addressing a wide range of issues. Fourth, the book is incredibly inspirational in demonstrating how seemingly small or unrelated discoveries can create major change. Fifth, Hemenway's writing is clear, sharp and engaging. As a result, the book is very accessible and suitable to all readers, regardless of their scientific backgrounds or familiarity with public health, yet the messages contained within it are far from simplistic. Finally, it is one of the most inspirational books I have read in a long time and will take a place on my shelf with another of my favorites -- How to Change the World. I have recommended this book to all my colleagues and plan to use it as a teaching tool.

While We Were Sleeping is an interesting book full of information that everyone should be aware of. Before reading this book, I was completely unaware of all the changes that had been made in products, roads, work places, homes, medical care practices, athletics, subway stations and more that have made our lives so much safer. Like another book that Hemenway wrote (Prices and Choices), this book examines so many different areas and gives so many varied examples of success in injury prevention that it should be appealing to anyone. From the few that we may know about to the many that we do not, Hemenway provides numerous examples of how our lives have been made safer. Each chapter provides specific examples of changes that have made us safer that we rarely think about (e.g., reducing the number of tap water burns in homes, reducing numbers and severity of injuries in football, lowering the odds of dying while anesthetized). He closes each chapter by discussing the people who have made the world safer -- those whose changes we benefit from daily but have never thought about let alone given credit for.

This book is fascinating from the perspective of a lay person yet would be an excellent teaching tool, as well. In addition to highlighting all the changes that have kept us safer, it also provides models that can be studied and used as a basis for future change in a variety of fields. This interesting look at injury prevention effectively exemplifies the very goals of public health as a whole -- prevention at a population level. Fascinating and hopeful, While We Were Sleeping is a well written book with widespread appeal.

This book should be required reading for all professionals in the injury and violence prevention field. The book provides a historical background as to what worked and who was involved. It is very well researched, well written, and very readable. While it does not provide a comprehensive historical coverage of the field, it is the only one existing. It provides some of the "best practices" for injury and violence interventions but is not comprehensive enough to offer a lot of options, solutions, or interventions for an injury or violence problem, nor does the book cover every one of the many injury and violence problems. Do not be deceived by the title--it is not a novel--the subtitle tells what the book is about. Injury Prevention: Competencies for Unintentional Injury Prevention Professionals

David Hemenway has taken a subject--injury prevention--that is
difficult to comprehend for most people and made it not only real, but
human. These inspirational stories will not only give comfort and pride
to those of us who practice this vocation for a living, but they will,
indeed they should, serve as a primer for all thinking men and women
about how their actions can make a difference, and that injury
prevention is a noble calling worthy of our respect.

--Written by Lewis C. Howe, Injury Prevention Coordinator, Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health

While We Were Sleeping is one of those books that delivers far more than it promises, and it continues to surprise all the way through. It's more than a history of injury and violence prevention, it's a history of nearly every useful item in our houses and our lives. Hemenway writes in an accessible storytelling style that matches Malcolm Gladwell on his best days. And because Hemenway has dedicated his life to the subject, the details in his stories resonate more deeply than Gladwell's, as Gladwell sometimes seems as if he's just passing through. From helicopter fires to building the Golden Gate Bridge to avalanche transceivers to Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod, and about 56 more fascinating entries, Hemenway tells us in concise yet richly entertaining passages just how the most important things in our lives became the way they are. Whether you're a history buff, an engineering geek, or just someone who loves an inspiring, well-told tale, this book is hard to put down. A fascinating read.

As a public health/injury prevention person, who frequently tries to explain my own motivation and inspire others to get into this work, this book is invaluable. It is very readable and very quotable. I have already recommended it and quoted from it in presentations - always with attribution. A must read for anyone in the field.

My daily commute sometimes includes driving behind a car with this bumper sticker: Make Good Choices.

David Hemenway's book shows how creating a safer world requires just that. The catch is that those good choices don't come without a fight.

This book tells the story of those successful fights and the fascinating and brave people who had a great idea and then just. didn't. give. up. I learned why the Metro stations in Washington, DC, have always seemed so peaceful, and I got a new perspective on how revolutionary the seat belts in my family's 1965 Volvo station wagon were.

This book is fun to read. It will make you see the world in a new light. You will start to see injury prevention interventions everywhere you look. And as a consequence you will imagine the faces of the people saved by the foresight and hard work of the creative hearty people that David Hemenway salutes.

Feel helpless about the oil spill? Wondering if we're on the road to ruin? Read this book.