Injury and violence
Unintentional Injuries
Unintentional injuries cause more than 3.5 million deaths and more than 113 million disability-adjusted life years annually
Authors:
R. Norton; A. A. Hyder; D. Bishai
Publisher:
Disease Control Priorities Project, Maryland, 2006
This chapter is part of a book called Diseases Control Priorities in Developing Countries, published by the Disease Control Priorities Project. The chapter examines the issue of unintentional injuries, focusing on a selection of cause-specific unintentional injuries. Injuries have traditionally been defined as damage to a person caused by an acute transfer of energy (mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical or radiation) or by the sudden absence of heat or oxygen. Unintentional injuries are a subset of these injuries, where there is no evidence of predetermined intent.
Worldwide, unintentional injuries accounted for more than 3.5 million deaths in 2001, or about 6 percent of all deaths and 66 percent of all injury deaths. Unintentional injuries were also responsible for more than 113 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2001, which is also 8 percent of all DALYs and 70 percent of all injury DALYs. More than 90 percent of unintentional injury deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, accounting for around 7 percent of all deaths in those countries.
The injuries examined here include those about which the World Health Organization publishes routine data, and those that account for the greatest burden of mortality and DALYs. These include road traffic accidents, poisonings, falls, burns and drownings. The issues examined include: the health and economic burden of the injuries; the causes of unintentional injuries in lower- and middle-income countries; the risk factors for each of the main categories; interventions and the costs, cost-effectiveness and economic benefits of such interventions; implementation of prevention and control strategies; and the research and development agenda for unintentional injuries.
