PASSION FOR PREVENTION
Burn Prevention Network board members work to head off injuries
As director of the Allegheny Health Network West Penn Burn Center, Dr. Ariel Aballay sees the toll burn injuries take on patients and their families.
The 48-year-old physician, of Shaler, plans to use his new seat on the Burn Prevention Network board of directors to let the public know what can be done to help prevent them.
Based in Lehigh County, the Burn Prevention Network is a nonprofit whose mission is to reduce the risk of burns and empower burn survivors and their families. It teaches those most vulnerable, including new parents, children and older adults, how to protect themselves and others from injuries by giving them the knowledge and tools they need to be safe.
Since its founding in 1987, it has partnered with health networks, regional burn centers, state agencies, emergency management service organizations, public schools, early learningcenters and businesses.
Dr. Aballay was one of three people recently appointed to its board. The others are Emily Goldman, a burn survivor and social worker from Montgomery County, and Vanessa Hartline, the director of cash management for an energy company in Lehigh County.
Over the past 20 years, Dr. Aballay, director of the West Penn Burn Center since 2012, has seen new technologies and improvements in surgical techniques that allow patients with major injuries to achieve function that was not possible a decade ago.
Approximately 500,000 Americans still seek care for burn injuries each year, according to the National Library of Medicine. The most typical causes are house fires, motor vehicle crashes, work-related accidentsand military combat.
“As a society, we must work more aggressively towards helping patients and families deal with the psychological trauma that is often involved in these accidents and their recovery process,” Dr. Aballay said.
“We can all help achieve this by helping burn survivors ease their return to their normal lives and at a government level, by changes in access to healthcare that help them gain easier access to these resources when needed.
“A burn accident is never planned, and it is a reality all of us are at risk of experiencing. These efforts to improve education and care can only be achieved with the support of patients and the community at large.”
He said more dedicated community partners are needed to amplify these preventative efforts to reach those populations at risk, including more seasoned parents helping young families who are learning how to take care of children or caretakers dealing with elderly parents who may have limited motor skills.
Fire extinguisher donations and workplaces having the appropriate safety measures in place to prevent accidents also are crucial, he said.
His goal is to implement a prevention campaign that shows, by measurable epidemiological data, a decrease in the number of burn accidents.
He said in talking with patients and learning about the circumstances surrounding their injuries, prevention rules were often not known or followed.
“As an advocate, I try to share this information and situations with patients, their families and the community with the long-term goal of preventing burn accidents or at least decreasing their severity,” he said.
As a member of the American Burn Association’s Prevention Committee, Dr. Aballay partnered with Burn Prevention Network CEO Corissa Rolon for a Pittsburgh press conference and hourlong KDKA Radio show to educate the public about consumer fireworks safety before the Fourth of July in 2023.
Goldman, 56, has been a volunteer counselor for teenage girls at the network’s Camp Susquehanna in the Pocono Mountains. The fiveday sleepaway camp provides children ages 7-17 who have a burn injury an opportunity to have fun, learn life skills and meet other burn survivors.
“I love it,” she said. “It gives them the tools they can use when they’re out in the world.”
Goldman would like to see funds raised to open more camps across the state, including one in Western Pennsylvania.
Rolon, who joined the network as CEO in early 2022, has a similar vision.
“I grew up in Indiana County and attended Apollo-Ridge School District in Armstrong County,” she said. “I was hired, in part, because of my deep roots and connections in Western Pennsylvania, where the Burn Prevention Network traditionally had fewer prevention programs.
“It has been my honor to expand our Western Pennsylvania partnerships with burn centers, burn survivors, funders, fire departments and other first responders to make sure those most vulnerable for risk of burns have the skills and knowledge to protect themselves and others from injuries.”
She said in the Lehigh Valley, where the Burn Prevention Network was founded and its programs have run the longest, child burn injurieswere reduced by 38%.
“It weighs heavy on my mind that our programs could have prevented two of every five child burn injuries in Western Pennsylvania,” she said.