Citation

Doege TC. Am. J. Public Health 1997; 87(10): 1721-1722.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.87.10.1721-a

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

letter: regarding the historical review on accidents by Laurimore et al, it is probably no coincidence that attention to injury morbidity and mortality has increased in direct proportion to the de-emphasis on the vague and misleading term "accident". I'm on the first two are the word accident were railroaders, who commonly held all injuries or wrecks were due to improper working procedures or less than optimally designed equipment. For instance, in the early 1970s, a large sign identifying Chicago's Potato and Onion Mart on Northwestern Avenue for claimed "safety is no accident."

In 1978, It was proposed that medicine take the lead in disposing of the terms accident and accidental injury and that "injury" replace those words; the idea of the proposal was that, according to common medical usage, injuries are less likely to be considered random occurrences not amenable to prevention. It is noteworthy that even the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention has stated that the terms"accident" and "accident prevention" should be avoided. Still the term accident is more widespread than one might wish....

(term-accident-vs-injury)

Language: en