Injuries: introduction

Injuries are a leading cause of death among the European population. After cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory disease, injury is the fourth most common cause of death in the European Union (European Commission 2006 [146kb]). The risk of death and severe injury is particularly high in such diverse areas as the home, leisure activities and sports, road transportation, the workplace, and in connection with consumer products and services. Injuries are often classified as unintentional (due to accidents) and intentional (due to self harm or interpersonal violence). Increasingly the term "injury" is preferred to "accidents" as the latter implies events are inevitable and unavoidable whereas a high proportion of these incidents are now regarded as being preventable.

The Association of Public Health Observatories in collaboration with a number of key academic institutions have recently established an Injury Observatory for Britain and Ireland(IOBI). The purpose of IOBI is to support injury prevention practitioners by making important and relevant information and tools available through one site, including: analyses of injury trends across countries and regions; links to injury policies and strategies; an injury prevention evidence base and, access to practical prevention tools. IOBI in partnership with the Collaboration for Accident and Prevention and Injury Control (CAPIC) also produce a free injury prevention newsletter providing information on new injury initiatives, statistical and research publications, conferences and training events. Copies of these newsletters are available from the IOBI website.

The following webpages therefore summarise the available Scottish data whilst providing links to more detailed data and information available both on the IOBI site and on the unintentional injuries section of the ISD website.