2008
Faculty Essay
Injury Prevention: Safety is Everyone's responsibility
Corinne Peek-Asa, Ph.D.
Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health
Director, Injury Prevention Research Center
2006 College of Public Health Distinguished Faculty Lecturer
How many of us know a family whose life has been unalterably changed following a car crash, violent crime, work-related injury, or suicide? Sometimes these tragic events have permanent consequences—lifelong disability or even death. Families and communities remain scarred forever after the tragic early loss of a life.
More often, however, traumatic injuries are annoying and costly but not permanent—work missed during a hospital stay, activities limited during the healing process, and sometimes lingering fear and confusion about why it happened in the first place. While tragic events happen every day, we often do not recognize how frequently they occur, the damaging effects they have on peoples’ lives, and, most important of all, the many ways of preventing them.
I have cited the statistics on traumatic injuries so many times they are almost numbing to me, but I repeat them often because their toll is still not widely acknowledged. In Iowa, the United States, and worldwide, injuries are a leading cause of death for all age groups. In fact, in the United States injuries are the leading cause of death among people ages 1 through 44. As a society we have come a long way in preventing premature death and illness. We can now easily accept that infectious diseases can be prevented through vaccinations and clean environments and that chronic conditions can be prevented or delayed with healthy life choices. However, we are far less likely to realize that the suffering caused by traumatic injuries in many ways meets or exceeds that of diseases, and, most importantly, that traumatic injuries are also very preventable.
So what is to be done? One of the greatest strides we’ve made in the United States is to care about safety. We expect our homes, our workplaces, and even our roads to be designed with safety in mind. We’ve become a culture that will buy cars based on their safety standards, build roads that reduce crash potential, put smoke alarms in our homes, and endorse policies that save lives. Although we still have a long way to go, we need to begin partnering with other countries to learn their successful strategies and to teach ours to them.
The University of Iowa College of Public Health plays an important role in reducing injuries through environmental design, policy changes, engineering innovations, and education. The University hosts one of 12 Injury Prevention Research Centers funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This center includes interdisciplinary collaboration to reduce injuries from road traffic crashes, interpersonal violence, residential fires, sports and recreation, workplace hazards, and many other risks. The center also houses an international Traumatic Injury Prevention Training Program focused on Central Europe and countries of former Yugoslavia. Working together we are able to reduce injuries in Iowa, the United States, and internationally through environmental, engineering, policy, and behavioral approaches.
While this infrastructure is important to move injury prevention forward worldwide, safety begins at home. We can all play an important role in increasing our safety culture. Set an example by wearing a helmet, buckling your seat belt, or slowing down the next time you drive through a neighborhood.