Posted: April 6th, 2015

Injuries are a major cause of preventable death and disability worldwide. Time precludes us from covering “injury” as a topic in the course, despite its importance as a public health issue. Therefore, this assignment will assist you to explore this field yourself, and in so doing, apply a range of skills required for public health practice and management.

Injuries are a major cause of preventable death and disability worldwide. Time precludes us from covering “injury” as a topic in the course, despite its importance as a public health issue. Therefore, this assignment will assist you to explore this field yourself, and in so doing, apply a range of skills required for public health practice and management.

Addressing the problem of injury in the population requires us to follow 4 steps known as the “Public Health Approach”. This is illustrated in the following figure. We need to start by understanding the size of the problem, and identifying the risk factors. Such information will indicate how serious the injury problem is, and where prevention measures are most urgently needed. Then, we can evaluate potential interventions, and widely implement those found to be effective. Our lectures will give you the necessary background to understand the “public health approach”, and you will have the opportunity to look at material relevant to each of the steps of the model (as they relate to injury) as you undertake assignment 2.

Assignments 2 require you to write scientific reports on the topic of injury (details under assignment headings) which would be suitable for hypothetical colleagues who are public health practitioners and managers. Therefore, you may assume a high level of knowledge of public health in general; though you should assume the group you are writing for has not worked in the area of injury prevention and control.
In presenting your work, please avoid use of the word “accident”. Practitioners who work in injury prevention avoid the word “accident” because it implies that such events are unpredictable and unavoidable. As you do your research you will see that injuries are largely predictable and preventable.

Ensure that your report is written scientifically. This means your work should include evidence to support any claims you make from a careful search of appropriate literature (scientific literature, government reports, and authoritative sources). Your work must be appropriately referenced. References are NOT counted as part of your word limit. Note your word limit at the top of your assignment. Word limits will be checked when your work is marked.

Task description

In this report you will focus on one of the following (unintentional) injuries only: burns, falls, poisoning, drowning, or road traffic injuries. Confine your report to one country (e.g. Australia) or one region (e.g. Asia). If you wish, you can further focus your chosen injury mechanism in relation to a specific population subgroup (e.g. falls in children or falls in older people). You should endeavor to provide detailed information from appropriate resources, such that your readers understand the extent of the problem within the population and the identified risk factors in the country or area on which you are reporting. Consider also, whether risk is distributed equally within your population.1

Research the literature to identify the range of interventions that are (or should be) available to prevent and control this injury. Review government websites and reports to understand what is being done at a population level in the country or region that you have selected. You should discuss the interventions in terms of the 3 E’s of injury prevention (education, enforcement and engineering)2; and briefly review the evidence of their effectiveness (you will likely need to search Medline or the Cochrane Library3). To what extent is this injury addressed comprehensively? For example, a comprehensive approach to injury prevention would see a range of interventions within the cells of the Haddon’s matrix4.

Conclude your report with any recommendations for areas of further action.

Your final page should include an example of a completed Haddon’s matrix for the injury mechanism you have selected. Please note, depending on what you have chosen, you may need to select just one aspect for the Haddon’s matrix or the task will be bigger than required e.g. interventions to prevent burns from fire; or interventions to prevent burns from scalds. Ensure you define what aspect you are looking at in the Haddon’s matrix.

1 See for example: Poulos, R., et al. (2007). “Area socioeconomic status and childhood injury morbidity in New South Wales, Australia.” Injury Prevention 13(5): 322-327.

2 These are well recognised within the injury prevention field. You should have no trouble finding literature to explain what they mean.

4 Haddon’s matrix is a tool frequently used in injury prevention. You will need to do your own research on this.