Childhood injury checks 'under resourced'
Childhood injuries 'must be better monitored'
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Friday, 20, Jun 2008 08:32
Without a comprehensive monitoring system for childhood injuries the UK will not be able to reduce the number of children harmed each year, doctors claim.
Graham Kirkwood and Allyson Pollock from the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh argue that the UK lacks the political support to develop the surveillance systems required to monitor childhood injury at a national level.
Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), they say that unintentional injury is a leading cause of death and illness in children and is the most common cause of hospital admission.
But without a comprehensive surveillance system for documenting childhood injury, the causes, risk factors, and short- and long-term consequences of injury are unknown.
As such evidence-based strategies to prevent injury cannot be developed, the medics claim.
Mr Kirkwood and Professor Pollock say that Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark have developed well-established population injury surveillance systems to inform intervention and prevention strategies.
All three countries have the lowest mortality from unintentional injury in children and adolescents in Europe.
"For UK governments to improve the health and wellbeing of children and to reduce inequalities, much more is needed," they conclude.
"The creation of a UK all party parliamentary group to champion the cause of accident prevention is a small beginning.
"UK governments must now find the resources to develop population-based injury surveillance systems so that the true incidence, causes, risk factors, and long term sequelae of injuries can be used to inform evidence-based intervention."