Christen Rexing didn’t set out to work in public health.

“I thought I would do a PhD in history,” she said. “I liked thinking about how government and policy impact people’s lives.” That instinct never really changed. It just found a different home.

“I realized I didn’t want to work at the clinical level. I wanted to work at the population level,” Rexing said. “Public health was where I could merge all of that.”

At Temple, that path took shape quickly. She arrived just as Dean Jennifer Ibrahim was helping expand health policy work at the University.

“We just hit it off right away,” Rexing said. “The work was really applied. You could see change happening.” That focus on turning ideas into action eventually led her to injury and violence prevention, a field she describes as both overlooked and essential.

“The leading cause of death under age 45 is injury,” she said. “And it receives the least amount of funding.”

She found her professional home in the Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR), where she now serves as Executive Director. “I went to my first conference and was like, ‘Oh, this is my community,’” she said. “I was hooked.”

Today, her work spans research, advocacy, and policy, often all at once. At the center of it all is a simple belief: what works should be funded, scaled, and implemented.

“When we invest, it works,” Rexing said, pointing to a recent 27% drop in unintentional overdose deaths following coordinated national investment. “We took what we knew worked and made it a national effort. And it worked.”

That mindset has been tested. Over the past two years, Rexing and her colleagues have fought to protect funding for injury and violence prevention research.

“We’re not going away,” she said. “Our work saves lives, and it’s not going to be erased.”

For Rexing, that work isn’t abstract. It’s personal, local, and immediate, something she experienced firsthand during her time as a township councilor. “You don’t need to go knock on someone’s door and ask them to do it,” she said. “You can do it.”

It’s also collective.

“You need community to do this work,” she said. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we’re not working together.”

Years into her career, Rexing still approaches the work with the same urgency and optimism that first drew her to public health.

“We know how to make the world safer,” Rexing said. “And we’re going to keep doing the work.”

Visit https://thesavir.org to explore resources and learn more about the Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Research.