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Abstract
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IN 1951, the Public Health Service of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare began supporting research in accident prevention through the research grants program of its National Institutes of Health. In ten years, 1951-1961, a total of forty-four grants were made at a cost of over four million dollars; thirty of these projects (costing $2.9 million) were concerned with motor vehicle traffic accidents.
Increasing interest in accidents as a public health problem (the leading cause of deaths among persons aged one to thirty-four inclusive; over 90,000 fatalities and forty-five million injuries annually in the USA) led to the establishment in 1961 of the Division of Accident Prevention in the Bureau of State Services of the Public Health Service. An integral part of this Division is the Research Grants Section, with budget and administrative responsibility for research grants in the broad areas of accident prevention research. Through this Section the Division supports research to: 1) Determine the causes and conditions that lead to accidents, 2) Develop, improve and evaluate means of preventing accidents; and 3) Minimize the consequences of accidental impacts, poisonings, burns, or other injurious encounters. Scientific information is sought on all types of accidental injuries, whether incurred on the highway, at home, at work, at play, in school or elsewhere.
In the two years following establishment of the Division's Research Grants Section, a total of forty-seven projects was supported by research grants at a cost of approximately 3.6 million dollars. Again, about three-quarters of the number of projects and dollar support were devoted to motor vehicle traffic accident research. This proportion is not the result of any deliberate decision of the Public Health Service nor of the reviewers, but simply reflects the interests of those who have applied for grants. |