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Abstract
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Today the center for action and support of accident prevention activities within the Federal Government is the Injury Control Program. Therefore, it is appropriate to discuss the Government's role in solving this health problem.
The present stage of development in injury control allows us to define, comprehend, and control some injury types as if they were disease entities. If the appropriate funds were made available, the estimated 16 billion dollars per year lost to the economy from accidents, the 50 million injuries caused by accidents, the 100,000 plus deaths resulting from accidents, and the 20 million plus hospital bed days used up by accident victims could all be reduced by about 30%.
Figure 1 shows the benefit-cost potential to be found in the control of accidental injuries and is derived from study of cost-effectiveness of previous injury control programs. The present situation (point A) has been relatively static over the past few years-that is, a reasonably low return is being made from our investment. With a 20 to 30% increase in resources, the curve reaches a steeper slope where you will get the greatest benefits per dollars spent.
Fundamentally, injury control needs a high Federal priority to receive adequate resources to make progress in overcoming this health problem. The basic criteria used to ascertain a prioritY rating in preventive health programs are: (1) mortality rate (including age-specific rates), (2) morbidity rate (including age-specific rates), (3) financial impact on national economy, (4) utilization of space in our nation's hospitals by those involved in caring for those incapacitated or requiring care, (6) the control measures available for attacking the problem-or the case with which they can be attained, (7) available resources, both personnel and monetary, to attack and solve the problem, and (8) public reception to the idea of controlling the problem.
Language: en |