Injury Control

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 main cause of mortality; they cost more money; they take away more years of potential life than any one illness. 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). The management of injury presents archetypal conflicts between individual freedom and the interests of the public good. Injury control, however, also demonstrates how public health advances by reframing the issue; in this example, by switching from the word accident (which designates the wounded party or a "act of God" as the causal agent) to injury (which suggests that equipment, environment, and those responsible for equipment and environment share responsibility).