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Injury and Emergency  updated wording 04/01/02

Injury is a global challenge   added 07/03/01
Injuries are the leading cause of death for those under age 24 in half of the countries
More than 10% of all global deaths are due to injuries.

http://www.mcare.org/cscenter/erproc.html

Emergency services means medically necessary services provided to you for the sudden onset of a medical condition that manifests itself by signs and symptoms of sufficient severity, including severe pain, such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in serious jeopardy to one's health or to a pregnancy in the case of pregnant women, serious impairment to bodily function, or serious dysfunction of any body organ or part.

http://rmstewart.uthscsa.edu/Theproblem.html

Injury (trauma) is the leading cause of death for all age groups under the age of 44. It accounts for more lost years of life than atherosclerosis and cancer combined. In the United States, it is the leading cause of death in children. Injury costs the United States between 100 and 200 billion dollars annually. It is one of the most pressing public health problems in the United States today, yet the problem continues to go largely unrecognized.
The reasons for this neglect are many:
 - No one expects to be injured, much less die from injury. 
 - Death following injury commonly happens to young adults and children, and they never expect to die from any cause. 
 - Disability or death from injury is viewed as an act of God or an unpreventable accident. 
      In fact this is clearly not true. Most "accidents" are preventable. 

The word accident refers to an unexpected, unforeseen and unfortunate event. Using this term to describe an injury, implies that the event was not preventable, when in fact, most "accidents" are preventable, with only a small amount of planning. Motor vehicle crashes and firearm injuries are the two most common causes of traumatic death. Alcohol and drug use are directly or indirectly responsible for 75-80% of these injuries. These factors can be modified by public opinion, personal responsibility, education, and prevention campaigns. Anti-smoking campaigns were viewed as largely unsuccessful in the 1970's; however today it seems evident that these efforts are becoming successful in preventing smoking related deaths. These efforts were hampered by an intentional clouding of the link between smoking and disease; however the immediate consequences of an "accident" make the connection between the act and outcome so clear that trauma prevention should be even easier than anti-smoking campaigns.

http://rmstewart.uthscsa.edu/pedi/peditrauma.html

For the past 20 years, injuries have continuously claimed more lives of children in the United States than all diseases combined. Among western countries, children in the US have the highest mortality rate of all, especially in numbers of children claimed by suicide. Each year one in every five children require medical attention for injuries which translates into 16 million Emergency Room visits by those aged 1-19. Of these 600,000 require hospitalization; 30,000 have permanent disabilities and 22,000 die. These numbers illustrate the magnitude of the problem and attention needs to be given to it. Trauma in children is not only costly to our country economically, but in more serious ways for every time we lose a child we not only lose what they could do for the world but what their children could have done.

In order to curb this tragic loss and solve the problem, we must first find out where it begins. The following are the top ten injuries among children which are the most severe and occur most frequently.

  1. Pedestrian Accidents (children hit by motor vehicles)
  2. Drowning
  3. Bike Accidents
  4. Falls from Heights
  5. Scald Burns
  6. Flame Burns
  7. Suicides
  8. Assaults
  9. Choking
  10. Smoke Inhalation

see also

Injuries are the 9th largest cause of disability 

Leading US causes of death - 1998  added 4/21/01

Trauma deaths happen about 10% as often as deaths due to heart disease, but trauma deaths subtract about 10 times as many years from a person's life (45 years vs. 5 years). Thus Skyaid might save more life-years reducing trauma deaths than reducing deaths due to heart disease. click here for references  added 4/19/01

Potential Years of Life Lost prior to age 70  added 5/11/01