An emergency department doctor at Johns Hopkins Children's Center raises a question at a monthly video meeting: "Can y'all do something about dog bites?" Her team was seeing at least one serious bite per month—injuries sometimes comparable to stab or gunshot wounds, occasionally fatal. That simple question set the Johns Hopkins Child Injury Prevention Network abuzz, and over the past year, the answer has unfolded into a collaborative effort bridging medicine, public health, veterinary science, and animal welfare in Baltimore.
Dog bites have long been overlooked as a preventable public health crisis, yet they are a leading cause of injury in children. The problem intensified during the pandemic: as families sheltered in place and pet adoption surged, pediatric dog bite injuries rose dramatically and have remained stubbornly persistent. Children aged zero to nine account for 80 percent of these injuries, and the damage is particularly severe in the youngest victims. Children under six are often at eye level with dogs' faces, putting them at significantly greater risk for bites to the head, neck, and face—injuries that frequently require surgery and leave deep psychological scars. About 62 percent of pediatric dog bite injuries affect the head and face. Beyond the physical wounds, 70 percent of parents reported their children exhibited at least one new concerning behavior after a bite, including nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and lasting fear of dogs.
When a dog bites a child in Baltimore, the animal is typically picked up by animal control and brought to the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS), the state's largest open-admission shelter. The dog may be surrendered, quarantined, or, rarely, euthanized—a cascade of decisions that deepens the family's already profound trauma. This is why BARCS' CEO Jen Brause recognized the urgency immediately. "We want to see fewer bites and people more educated about how to prevent them," she says. The partnership serves everyone: it protects children, reduces the burden on BARCS' already strained admissions, and keeps families and their beloved pets together.
The collaboration began in 2021, when the Johns Hopkins Child Injury Prevention Network—itself a joint effort of Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—expanded its membership to include injury researchers, statisticians, and communications experts. Vanya Jones, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School and associate director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, saw an opportunity to strengthen partnerships between Baltimore City and Hopkins faculty. She enlisted Meghan Davis, a veterinarian and associate professor at the Bloomberg School, who brought BARCS to the table.
Now the team is putting data to work. BARCS is sharing shelter records to map where bites are clustering across Baltimore neighborhoods and the circumstances surrounding them. The shelter already operates monthly community clinics across the city, offering free or low-cost rabies vaccinations, spay and neuter services, and supplies like leashes and crates. As part of Hopkins' prevention effort, these clinics are becoming platforms for new interventions—education and training designed to keep children and dogs safe before a crisis occurs.
What began as a question in a Zoom meeting has become something larger: a recognition that preventing dog bites is not just an emergency medicine problem, but a public health imperative that touches animal welfare, family stability, and the neighborhoods where Baltimore families live.