Injury prevention
Topic outline
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Injury Prevention
"Injuries and violence have been neglected from the global health agenda for many years, despite being predictable and largely preventable. Evidence from many countries shows that dramatic successes in preventing injuries and violence can be achieved through concerted efforts that involve, but are not limited to, the health sector. The international community needs to work with governments and civil society around the world to implement these proven measures and reduce the unnecessary loss of life that occurs each day as a result of injuries and violence.” From WHO: Injuries and violence: the facts.
To ensure a healthy life and promote well-being for all is the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 3, and the target 3:6 requests everybody to participate in reducing deaths due to injuries from road traffic accidents, the largest cause of injury globally.
This course is designed to help you learn how to collect information on the burden of injury in your setting, understand the causes and risk factors for injury, and develop and evaluate intervention programs relevant to your setting. This will be underpinned by the principles and characteristics of a public health approach to prevention.
How to navigate the course. Click on the hyperlinks to access the various parts of the course. You will find links to a number of relevant readings in the sections marked resources. You are also invited to reflect on the issues identified in the resources (click on the reflection links - you will then be able to post comments and see reflections of other participants).
Earn a certificate.There is a quiz in the final section of the course - if you pass the Quiz, and access the Resources and post a reflection in each section, you will earn a certificate.
The course was developed by Drs Abdalla Safa, Victoria Ononeze, Bhalla Kavi, and colleagues.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Note: If you enjoy this course, you may find other courses in the Open Online Courses site of interest. We would point to the Global mental health course, as self-harm and substance misuse are important injury mechanisms/risk factors. The Global Health informatics course includes mechanisms of surveillance and data collection which are also of relevance to injury prevention.
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By the end of this Section, you should have an understanding of the patterns and trends in the burden of injuries in different settings, and of issues associated with measurement and surveillance of injury, including in information-poor settings
The Section is designed to explore:
The definition, external causes, and burden indices of injury, and the strengths and weaknesses of the various data sources that can be used in measuring them.
The components of the burden of injury including the injury pyramid, and how injury burden varies by time, place and person, and changes in injury risks over the life course, using reliable data sources
The importance of injury surveillance, with some examples of injury surveillance out there, their strengths, weaknesses and challenges to sustainability.
This short video has been produced by the WHO Regional Office of the Western Pacific. It is a great introduction to the issue. Before you work through the Resources in the link below the video, take a look and think if it is relevant to your situation:
You might also like to read this short editorial Measurement is not enough for global road safety: implementation is key.
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Make forum posts: 1
Reflect on the burden of injury in your locality, region or country and how has it been changing, and the limitations of the estimates of the burden of injury that you relied on.
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By the end of this Section, you should be able to identify different models of injury prevention
The Section is designed to explore:
The purposes and components of various frameworks developed and used in the field of injury prevention.
The extent to which these frameworks can ensure that all potential factors and interventions are considered and whether each may fall short of guiding comprehensive prevention practice.
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Make forum posts: 1
Reflect on the common conceptual frameworks employed in injury prevention from the resources of this Section, using different examples of injuries, and consider how they link with each other.
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By the end of this Section, you should understand the causes and risk factors associated with injury, including biomechanical factors, and especially as relevant to your own setting
The Section is designed to explore:
The various risk factors associated with a specific cause of injury in different settings
How identifying the risk factors may help in planning potential preventive interventions, differentiating between modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors, distal and proximal factors, high risk groups, and how influencing distal factors through the links identified in 1 can influence proximal factors.
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Make forum posts: 1
Page 24 of the core resource provided shows Haddon’s matrix for factors contributing to injury and consequences of injury - as applied to road traffic crashes (Human, Vehicle/Equipment, Environment factors at the pre-crash, crash and post-crash phases). Please reflect on this and on how it might apply to risk factors for other types of injury.
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By the end of this Section you should be aware of the scope of injury prevention and of alternative strategies and to be able to consider an implementation strategy, and its evaluation, to prevent injury in your setting
The Section is designed to explore:
The levels where prevention activities can be focused (primary, secondary and tertiary) and implementation (individual, community, organisational, public policy).
Examples of interventions that use education/behavior change, legislation/enforcement and technology/engineering to prevent injuries, and how to create a comprehensive injury prevention programme.
The roles of international, national, state and local level agencies and organisations and communities that can serve as resources for injury prevention.
How to locate and evaluate the best sources of information and evidence available on which to base injury prevention decisions.
How to develop evidence based injury prevention strategies which include a description of the target population/community, the burden of injury, goals and objectives, proposed activities and implementation plan, evaluation framework and timescale and resources.
The need for a future role as advocates for injury prevention, and the need for a leadership role, including for those non-health projects that present perfect opportunities for injury prevention
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Make forum posts: 1
Since injuries occur in all age groups and in all settings, reflect on the opportunities for injury prevention in the community you serve and who are the key players in injury prevention in your community and what are their roles.
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Take the quiz to test your knowledge. The quiz provides automatic feedback once you have completed it.
Earn a Certificate - if you have explored the resources and posted a reflection in each Section and passed the Quiz.
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Receive a grade Receive a passing gradeOpened: Wednesday, 31 October 2018, 7:19 PM
Take this quiz - a score of 8/11 will qualify towards a certificate
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