Question

Identify a significant injury issue from an ecological perspective.  Significance is based on criteria used to describe and understand health issues: Occurrence, distribution, frequency, morbidity, mortality, and disability. Search the current literature using Google Scholar, PubMed.gov, or any other scientific article search engine to identify an intervention to address the injury issue. Discuss the expected change in the incidence of the injury as a result of the intervention.

Make sure you address the following:

Identify significant injury and describe
 Occurrence
 Distribution (geological, age, gender)
 Morbidity
 Mortality
 YPLL
 Death rate
 Disability
 Costs

Identify 2-3 EVIDENCE BASED interventions to address injury

 Google scholar
 Impact/Effectiveness

Answer 1

The ecological study has particular value in injury prevention where both environmental, population, and individual based solutions have been demonstrated to be effective in prevention. The ecological design is characterised by its consideration of differences between groups rather than individuals. The groups can be defined by place (multiple group design), by time (time trend design), or by a combination of the above. Mixed or multilevel designs can also be constructed where the units of comparison can include both group level and individual level data. The ecological study uses data that generally already exists and is a quick and cost efficient approach compared with individual level studies. It is also particularly valuable when an individual level association is evident and an ecological level association is assessed to determine its public health impact.In injury prevention, the application of theecological model in injury prevention has shown the most promise in falls injury prevention. There is general agreement that single interventions do not have the same impact as multiple interventions in efforts to reduce or prevent injury .Health promotion approaches to injury prevention have been advocated as one approach to ensure an ecological context.

The safe community model seeks to understand injury and intervene at acommunity level. By involving people in finding their own solutions to community problems, thecommunity aims to be a catalyst for environmental,structural, sociological, and political change.This empowers the community, and ultimately individuals within a community, to change their environment and their behaviours to reduce the risk of injury and increase the perception of safety. It uses an ecological paradigm to promote community safety promotion .  Communities are assessed for WHOdesignation based on six indicators, designed to encourage best practice in safety promotion :

1.An infrastructure based on partnerships and collaborations, governed by a cross-sectoral group that is responsible for safety promotion in their community

;2.Long-term, sustainable programmes covering both genders and all ages, environments, andsituations;

3.Programmes that target high-risk groups and environments and programmes that promote safety for vulnerable groups;

4.Programmes that document the frequency and causes of injury;

5.Evaluation measures to assess their programmes, processes, and the effects of change; and

6.Ongoing participation in national and international Safe Communities Networks.

Occurence

It is a measure of the probability of incidence of injury in a population within a specified period of time.

Morbidity

The proportion of patients with a particular injury during a given year per given unit of population.

Mortality

Mortality is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time.

Years of potential life lost (YPLL) or potential years of life lost (PYLL), is an estimate of the average years a person would have lived if he or she had not died prematurely.

Death rate

The ratio of deaths to the population of a particular area or during a particular period of time, usually calculated as the number of deaths per one thousand people per year.