Control Of Injuries

The verifiable claims made to highlight the significance of injuries as a public health issue are widely known: For the bulk of the human life span, injuries are the primary cause of mortality; they rob individuals of more years of potential life than any other illness; and the cost of injuries, whether measured in money or in human misery, is astonishing (Rice et al.). Those who work in the subject of injury prevention often describe injuries as human harm brought on by the sudden transfer of energy or by a lack of necessities like oxygen (as in asphyxiation) or heat (as in hypothermic injuries) (National Committee for Injury Prevention and Control). Controlling injuries presents archetypal conflicts between an individual's own freedom and the aims of the public health. These tensions, which are described in ethical terms as those between paternalistic beneficence and individual liberty, are encountered in public interventions such as those that compel motorcycle helmet usage or seat belt use for both drivers and passengers in cars. Injury control, however, also demonstrates how public health advances by changing how the issue is defined—in this case, by changing the term accident to injury instead of accident, which designates the injured party or an "act of God" as the causative factor.