Measuring the Public Health Impact of Injuries

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Abstract
In its groundbreaking 1985 report, Injury in America: A Continuing Public Health Problem, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Trauma Research stated that “injury is caused by acute exposure to energy, such as heat, electricity, or the kinetic energy of a crash, fall, or bullet. It may also be caused by the sudden absence of essentials, such as heat or oxygen, as in the case of drowning. Injury may be either unintentional (accidental) or deliberate (assaultive or suicidal)” (1, pp. 3–4). The extent, severity, and impact of injury are largely determined by the amount of this energy concentrated outside the band of human tolerance. Records on the impact of injuries date back to biblical times, when we are told about the massive drowning that occurred when “the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the hosts of the Pharaoh that had followed [the Israelis] into the sea; not so much as one of them remained” (Exodus 14:28).

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