Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2014 Jul 5;384(9937):64-74.
doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60074-X. Epub 2014 Jul 1.

Prevention of injury and violence in the USA

Tamara M Haegerich  1 , Linda L Dahlberg  2 , Thomas R Simon  2 , Grant T Baldwin  2 , David A Sleet  2 , Arlene I Greenspan  2 , Linda C Degutis  2
Affiliations
Review

Prevention of injury and violence in the USA

Tamara M Haegerich et al. Lancet. .

Abstract

In the first three decades of life, more individuals in the USA die from injuries and violence than from any other cause. Millions more people survive and are left with physical, emotional, and financial problems. Injuries and violence are not accidents; they are preventable. Prevention has a strong scientific foundation, yet efforts are not fully implemented or integrated into clinical and community settings. In this Series paper, we review the burden of injuries and violence in the USA, note effective interventions, and discuss methods to bring interventions into practice. Alliances between the public health community and medical care organisations, health-care providers, states, and communities can reduce injuries and violence. We encourage partnerships between medical and public health communities to consistently frame injuries and violence as preventable, identify evidence-based interventions, provide scientific information to decision makers, and strengthen the capacity of an integrated health system to prevent injuries and violence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests

We declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Top 10 leading causes of death for ages 1 to 30 years – United States, 2010
CDC. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). 2013 February 19, 2013; Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Age-adjusted suicide and homicide rates by race/ethnicity – United States, 2010
CDC. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). 2013 February 19, 2013; Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Rates of opioid overdose deaths, sales and treatment admissions – United States, 1999–2010
Adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vital Signs: Overdoses of prescription opioid pain relievers -- United States, 1999–2008. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2011. 60: p. 1487–1492. Updated with 2009 mortality and 2010 treatment admission data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [accessed Feb 19, 2013];Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars.
    1. Girasek DC. Public beliefs about the preventability of unintentional injury deaths. Accid Anal Prev. 2001;33:455–65. - PubMed
    1. Torell U, Bremberg S. Unintentional injuries: attribution, perceived preventability, and social norms. J Safety Res. 1995;26:63–73.
    1. Ikeda R. Injury prevention and lifestyle medicine. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2010;4:5.
    1. Dellinger AM, Chen J, Vance A, Breiding MJ, Simon T, Ballesteros MF. Injury prevention counseling for adults: have we made progress? Fam Community Health. 2009;32:115–22. - PubMed

MeSH terms