Emerging Issues

The estimated direct medical cost for the care of acutely injured persons in the United States is $80 billion per year.⁴⁹ Through CDC, HHS released the CDC Acute Injury Care Research Agenda: Guiding Research for the Future,⁵⁰ which identifies priorities in reducing acute injury. The agenda will help guide research efforts to prevent needless deaths, lessen adverse health effects from injuries, and potentially reduce the cost of medical care to injured persons. Full implementation of the research priorities could help improve outcomes for persons who are injured and reduce the adverse health effects of daily occurring injuries and related medical costs.

Elder abuse is an emerging public health issue that may increase as the population ages. More than 550,000 persons aged 60 years and older experience abuse, neglect, and/or self-neglect in a 1‑year period.^{51, 52}

E-codes serve as a critical link in the public health approach to preventing injuries.⁵³ E-codes are a group of number and letter codes beginning with the letter "E" that categorize injuries by cause and describe their severity. Use of this system, combined with cataloging patient information, can assist in the development of effective prevention strategies and help evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs. Between 1997 and 2004, improvement occurred in the availability and quality of statewide E‑coded hospitalization and emergency department data.⁵³ The challenge remains to work toward establishing a statewide hospital discharge data system and hospital emergency department data systems to collect uniform, high-quality data on nonfatal injuries in all States.

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