Injury:

 
Injury in America.  It’s endemic.  It’s accepted.  Motor vehicle crashes, homicides, debilitating falls and concussions are so common that people believe they’re inevitable. 

They aren’t.  In 1992, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center) was established at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Since then, it has been examining the reasons injuries occur and helping state and local health departments, and community groups put together programs to prevent them.  CDC’s injury research and programs protect Americans from harm. 

Consider:

• Injury is the leading killer of Americans in the first four decades of life;
• Violent and unintentional injuries cause more than 146,000 deaths each year and cost an estimated $260 billion annually (in 1995 dollars);
• Treatment of injuries and their long-term effects account for 12% of medical spending in the United States; and, 
• Hospital emergency departments treat an average 55 people for injuries every minute.

Injury comprises a fundamental threat to human health and life.  At the beginning of the 20^th Century, accidents were seventh among the leading causes of death in the U.S.  By the beginning of the 21^st, they had moved up to fifth place.

In confronting this threat, CDC employs the same scientific methods it uses to prevent infectious disease – defining the health problem, identifying risk and protective factors, developing and testing prevention strategies.  CDC works to assure that proven techniques move from testing to widespread adoption – so that Americans at greatest risk of injury will be safer from harm. 
  

CDC’s injury research shows what works to keep people safe. 

Connecting research to the community has been a primary focus of CDC.  Through a network of more than 20 research centers based in colleges and universities across America, the CDC and its partners are building a dynamic research infrastructure.   These research centers work to identify critical gaps in knowledge of injury risks and protection, conduct important research to address these gaps, and offer their findings to community public health workers to shape into effective programs to help each of us.

  CDC believes that evaluating how well programs work and investigating the best ways of conveying good information to people in need are just as important as finding the root causes of an injury.  So it’s injury program deliberately established linkages between research institutions, agencies working in injury prevention and local public health officials.  The CDC also seeks information from people whose lives have been affected by injuries.  This networking helps state and local public health departments have easier access to the best information available to help keep their citizens safer.

This page last reviewed September 07, 2006.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control