Citation

Mello MJ. R. I. Med. J. (2013) 2024; 107(8): e7.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Rhode Island Medical Society)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

39058982

Abstract

Injury has a dominant role in our nation's health. It is the leading cause of death in ages 1-44 and is one of the top ten causes of death in all age groups. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported there were 306,086 fatal injuries nationally, but the scope of the injury problem is much greater, with approximately 40 mil- lion emergency department visits for injury and additionally over 57 million physician office visits. In 2019, the cost of caring for injury was estimated to be 4.2 trillion dollars. The CDC reports that our small state had 1,044 fatal injuries and the Rhode Island Department of Health reported 62,845 injury-related emergency department visits in 2022.

Injuries are frequently referred to as accidents, but that gives the impression that they are random events or bad luck that cannot be managed. Instead, like other diseases, injury has risk and protective factors to its occurrence. Although difficult to be immune from any injury, it can be controlled with mitigation of risk and adopting protective strategies that can stop its occurrence or minimize the resul- tant injury. For over 25 years, the Injury Prevention Center at Rhode Island Hospital has utilized community outreach, education, and research to control injury in Rhode Island. In April 2022, we were awarded NIH funding to create the Rhode Island Hospital Injury Control Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE). This augmented our ongo- ing research in allowing us to develop early career faculty researchers across the spectrum of injury control research that includes prevention, optimal treatment of injury, and rehabilitation and post-injury sequalae...

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; *Wounds and Injuries/prevention & control