Injury, usually defined as physical harm to a person’s body, imposes a significant burden of deaths, disabilities and health costs on Australia each year. The NHMRC invested more than $20.2 million from 2000 to 2007 into research related to injury prevention.
What is injury?
Injury is usually defined as physical harm to a person’s body. Common types of physical injury are broken bones, cuts, poisoning and burns. Injury results from harmful contact between people and objects, substances, or other things in their surroundings. Examples include being struck by a car, cut by a knife, bitten by a dog or poisoned by inhaled petrol.
Some injuries are the intended result of acts by people: harm of one person by another (assault, homicide, etc.) or self harm. However, most injuries are not intended and these are often described as accidental.
Injury risk factors
A variety of factors increase a person's risk of being injured. Prominent among these are age, sex, alcohol use, residence, ethnicity, socio-economic status and occupation. These personal risk factors additionally influence the type of injury that occurs: men are at higher risk of injuries from transport accidents and violence, for instance.
The pattern of injury varies significantly with age. Near-drowning and drowning are major causes of injury and death in early childhood (a stage at which a child is unable to swim and unable to recognise the dangers of water). Self harm and road crashes are primary causes of injury in young adulthood. Falls are the most common cause of injury death among the elderly due to their high susceptibility to trauma.
Suicide is the leading cause of injury death, comprising nearly 30% of all such deaths in 2004-05.
The burden of injury in Australia
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [2]:
- Injuries result in an estimated 8,000 or 6% of deaths each year in Australia and are responsible for an estimated 400,000 hospital admissions annually.
- Injuries are the principal cause of death in almost half of the people under 45 years of age, and account for a range of physical, cognitive and psychological disabilities that seriously affect the quality of life of injured people and their families.
- Significant health costs are also attributable to injury, accounting for approximately 8% of the total direct costs of all diseases annually.
- Health costs associated with injury in Australia have been estimated to be $2.6 billion annually. This compares to the total direct cost for cancer of $1.4 billion for the same period.
Injury as a National Health Priority Area (NHPA)
Injury prevention and control was endorsed as a National Health Priority Area by Australia’s Health Ministers in 1986 in recognition of the national burden injury imposes.
NHMRC funding into injury research
NHMRC has invested over $20.2 million for research related to injury prevention from 2000 to 2007.
| Year | Funding ($m) |
|---|---|
| 2000 | 0.7 |
| 2001 | 0.8 |
| 2002 | 1.8 |
| 2003 | 2.0 |
| 2004 | 2.1 |
| 2005 | 3.1 |
| 2006 | 4.9 |
| 2007 | 4.9 |
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More information on injury-related grants*
(*including injury research not related to prevention)
References
- Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, National Injury and Safety Promotion Plan 2004-2014
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia's health 2008
The information on this page should not be used for individual medical advice. Please see your doctor if you have concerns or specific questions relating to your health.