JUNE 2003 - Alberta Centre for Injury Control & Research

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Injuries in Alberta are unacceptably high with Alberta having one of the highest rates in Canada. Given these concerns, a broad range of stakeholders involved in the field of injury control came together to develop a coordinated and collaborative strategy to address injury control in Alberta. The Alberta Injury Control Strategy (AICS) was developed with the assistance of an Advisory Steering Committee and reviewed and validated by stakeholders across the province through regional and provincial consultation sessions. This executive summary contains the highlights of the Alberta Injury Control Strategy. The Alberta Injury Control Strategy provides a framework to guide effective planning and implementation of injury control initiatives among all stakeholders in the injury control field in Alberta. What do we mean by injury and injury control? The terms injury and injury control can mean different things to different people. While the term injury has a technical definition 1 , it may be viewed as a broad term that encompasses numerous situations in which people are hurt or killed. Injury control is an all-encompassing term that includes injury prevention, and in the event of an injury, emergency response, acute care, and rehabilitation. The focus is on preventing injuries in the first place, but when injuries do occur, the provision of quality emergency response, acute care and rehabilitation services can affect the long-term outcome of the injury. This strategy addresses the full continuum of injury control with a focus on injury prevention. Injury refers to someone being hurt or killed. Injury control includes injury prevention, emergency response, acute care and rehabilitation services. Injury includes both unintentional and intentional injuries. Unintentional injuries result from incidents such as motor vehicle collisions, falls, fires/burns, drowning, and poisonings. Intentional injuries result from incidents such as suicide, personal assault, family violence and homicide. Intentional injuries are just that; actions taken that are intended to injure oneself or others. What are some things we know about Alberta’s injuries? • Falls, motor vehicle collisions, fire, suffocation, suicide and self-inflicted injury are major causes of injury death. • Injuries are the leading cause of premature death and account for the majority of deaths of those aged 44 and under. • Burden of injury is highest in the disadvantaged population. • Indigenous people and people who live in rural and remote areas are at high risk of injury. • Injury deaths and morbidity cost the health system, the economy and society billions of dollars annually. Four Albertans die everyday from injuries. Unintentional injuries cost Albertans $1.8 billion in 1997. Injuries involving Aboriginal people are 2 to 4 times higher than the general population. Making Alberta the Safest Place to Live 2
What are the injury control issues? When it comes to injuries, Alberta faces a significant task. What is at the root of the problem? What needs to be understood and acted upon if the injury situation in Alberta is to be changed? Six major challenges were identified: • Poor awareness, understanding, acceptance and ownership of injury as a major health and safety issue. • Under-developed coordination, collaboration and communication among stakeholders. • Under-resourced programs and services, including no designated and long-term sustained funding for injury control initiatives. • Public and community stigma attached to intentional injuries such as suicide. • Lack of timely, comprehensive, standardized, consistent and accurate reporting and data on injuries. Education and awareness. Coordination, collaboration and communication. Program resources. Public and community stigma. Timely, comprehensive, standardized, consistent and accurate data. Research and program evaluation. • Limited research and program evaluation on the effectiveness of injury control interventions. Who’s Responsible for Alberta’s Injury Control Strategy? Everyone has a responsibility for making Alberta the safest place to live. Injuries can happen wherever people live, work, play and learn. Everyone needs to be vigilant to the factors—human, agent/vehicle, physical environment or socio-cultural environment—that can contribute to injuries. This means that everyone has a responsibility including individual Albertans and their families, communities, community-based and not-for-profit organizations, regional health authorities, professional groups, education system, business and industry, and the municipal, provincial and federal governments. Everyone has a responsibility! Making Alberta the Safest Place to Live 3
Page 1 and 2: JUNE 2003
Page 3: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Alberta Injury
Page 7 and 8: Focus on the future—making Albert
Page 9 and 10: Outcome indicator Current status Ta
Page 11 and 12: Recommended Actions • Develop and
Page 13 and 14: Recommended Actions • Implement t
Page 15 and 16: Making Alberta the Safest Place to
Page 17 and 18: Figure 1 Injury control model BACKG
Page 19 and 20: PURPOSE OF THE ALBERTA INJURY CONTR
Page 21 and 22: Injuries may be further understood
Page 23 and 24: Table 2 (continued) Application of
Page 25 and 26: Table 3 Number of child injury deat
Page 27 and 28: Other highlights 10 specific to inj
Page 29 and 30: Challenge 2 Under-developed coordin
Page 31 and 32: Challenge 6 Limited research and pr
Page 33 and 34: Figure 3 Overview of the Alberta In
Page 35 and 36: MISSION Contribute to a healthy Alb
Page 37 and 38: Goal 1 Increase the awareness and c
Page 39 and 40: Goal 1 Objective 1.2 Increase the a
Page 41 and 42: Recommended Actions • Implement a
Page 43 and 44: Goal 3 Build and sustain the capaci
Page 45 and 46: Goal 5 Increase research and progra
Page 47 and 48: Goal 6 Optimize emergency response,
Page 49 and 50: Goal 6 Optimize emergency response,
Page 51 and 52: Making Alberta the Safest Place to
Page 53 and 54: • Community-based and not-for-pro
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− − Educate and train your work
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• Federal Government − − −
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• Facilitate stakeholder developm
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APPENDIX B Injuries know no boundar
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• Decrease the incidence of injur
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Injuries account for a significant
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Injury deaths Figure B-4 presents i
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Figure B-5 Rank order of injury cau
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Trends in injury mortality, hospita
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Injury hospitalizations and emergen
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Figure B-11 Rank order of injury ca
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Rank order of causes of emergency r
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OTHER INJURY DATA FOR ALBERTA Other
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• Four out of 10 First Nations pe
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Fire injuries Data on fires in Albe
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APPENDIX C 1 The technical definiti
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JUNE 2003 - Alberta Centre for Injury Control & Research

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