New Publication Examines the Health and Social Impact of Unintentional Injuries

Members of JH-IIRU team, including emergency medicine resident, Sarah Stewart de Ramirez, director Adnan A. Hyder, trauma research coordinator Hadley K. Herbert, and associate director Kent Stevens, recently published a paper on unintentional injuries in the Annual Review of Public Health. The article, entitled, “Unintentional Injuries: Magnitude, Prevention and Control,” examines the health and social impact of injury, injury data availability and injury prevention interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nearly 80% of all injury deaths that occur annually are unintentional in nature, and the number of people who experience life-long disability and socioeconomic loss as a result of unintentional injuries (and their affected family members) results in nearly 140 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost annually. 

In the article, the research team examines the challenges not only associated with capturing accurate burden of injury data in LMICs, but also with implementing effective prevention efforts. The team concludes that a health systems-based approach—which includes prevention, prehospital, hospital and rehabilitation care and analysis of the cost-effectiveness of each component-- is essential to successful future efforts to decrease the burden of unintentional injuries.

Click here for the full article.

To learn more about unintentional injuries and the International Injury Research Unit, contact us.