She was also an Injury Prevention Specialist with the Indian Health Service for the Fort Defiance District (26 Navajo Nation Chapters or local governments) for 9 years before returning to GIS to improve and increase her skills with GIS. As an Injury Prevention Specialist she has learned community-based project management with very small budgets and implementing comprehensive projects with evaluation and measures. She learned to “sell” her program as she was the only role in advocating for Injury Prevention to a sea of Environmental Health Specialists, community leaders, Injury Prevention stakeholders, and upper management. Indian Health Service provided many trainings and experiences in all aspects of a community-based injury prevention program. Of her many successful projects at the Fort Defiance District, she has facilitated injury prevention coalition meetings, implemented evaluations of fall prevention, passenger safety, and outreach activities, implemented surveys of passenger safety use, provided technical assistance in the passing of an updated Navajo Nation child passenger law, and maintained the severe injury data surveillance database. She has collaborated with various programs to partner in injury prevention efforts and leverage resources for under-funded objectives.

She is excited to work in the field of epidemiology as her interest grew after taking graduate courses at the University of Michigan in Epidemiology during an Injury Prevention Fellowship program.

Delores Becenti, Senior Programs and Projects Specialist for the Navajo Epidemiology Center.

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