Question

why should we be concerned about injuries as public health professionals? Discuss the significance of unintentional injuries and the potential economic ,social, and emotional cost associated with them. Briefly discuss the theoretical framework that is used for injury prevention.

Answer 1

Health experts in the US and other countries and the world health organisation (WHO) have come to view injuries as public health problem similar to communicable diseases like tubercolosis ,AIDS.

Unintentional injuries are injuries for which there is no pre- determined cause.Eg of unintentional injury is automobile crash.Such injuries affect millions of people associated with it and so cause psychological,economic and social cost. Injuries result in social cost which are borne by the society and also by the families of the victims.Injuries lead to high economic costs which in turn increase societal cost.

Planning an injury prevention is the main concern now a days . There are many models like the Health belief model,Perceived susceptibility model,Perceived severity model,Perceived benefits model etc. In Health belief model the perceived threat is the perceived seriousness and perceived susceptibility and these two depend on the early understanding of the situation.In Perceived susceptibility model the health problems of the identified people are foreseen and attempts are made to minimize the risk of health problem.In Perceived severity model is the assessment of the seriousness of the problem and the future consequence of it.Perceived benefit model is the individual's effort to assess the benefit of engaging in health promoting behavior to reduce risk of disease.