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Vale Ivor Barry Pless
  1. Ian Scott1,
  2. Louis- Rachid Salmi2,
  3. Frederick P Rivara3
  1. 1 Retired, Formerly at Kidsafe Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. 2 Bordeaux School of Public Health, University of Bordeaux, Talence, France
  3. 3 Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Frederick P Rivara, Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98122, USA; fpr{at}uw.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2023-045142

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    Our friend and colleague Dr. Ivan Barry Pless, the founding editor of Injury Prevention, died on 1 August 2023.

    A paediatrician, epidemiologist and Professor Emeritus at McGill University, Barry was a tireless advocate for children’s health with a lifetime of professional achievement.

    A beautiful and accomplished writer his curriculum vitae ran more than 100 pages and he continued editing and reviewing scientific articles to the end. In addition to hundreds of academic articles and books, he wrote a memoir of his life (Barry’s Bits), a collection of stories (Did I Ever Tell You?) and several children’s books. Dozens of letters to the editor reflected his commitment to community and strong opinions. He loved music and art. He played the clarinet, sang with great enthusiasm (but badly) and diligently tried to learn to play the piano at the age of 85.

    In recognition of his major contributions to public health, especially child injury prevention, his native Canada named him a Member of the Order of Canada in 1993 and he was promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017.

    Barry in public health

    Barry was the father and grandfather of paediatric injury prevention and control. He published his first paper on this in 1972, when most readers of this journal had not yet been born and certainly before any of the rest of us were active in research in this field. He was one of the first people to study the issue of appropriate restraints for children in motor vehicles and the effects of legislation on improving restraint use.

    Barry was instrumental in developing an injury surveillance system in emergency departments across Canada. This was really one of the first surveillance systems to provide national-level estimates of medically treated injuries. It set the stage for what …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors contributed to the conception and writing of this article.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.