Principles and Concepts of Community Injury prevention

The problem of accidents in Thailand is becoming more and more critical and accounts for the second topmost death rate of Thai people, the first being heart diseases. However, in many provinces, the highest death rates are from accidental injuries. When considering the age group of less than 40 years, or those who are working towards their success in life and building up families and society, accidents account for the highest death rate. This leads to great loss of opportunities among those in their potential years of life, and hence the great loss of national productivity.

Accidents are responsible for injuries and disabilities, which nothing else can compete. Accidents result in loss, of life, money, and resources, and cause great post-accident impact on the family's mentality, public health, society, law, and economy.

Each year, over 600,000 trauma patients are hospitalized, whereas more than 2,000,000 are slightly injured. More than 20,000 die each year from road accidents while there is an increase of 100,000 people becoming disabled, which means increasing burdens for family, society, and the country as a whole.

TDRI conducted a study and assessed the losses from road accidents and found that the country's economic loss was 60,000 million baht in 1993.

Investigating the causes of different types of accidents is not difficult, but successful preventative implementation is extremely intricate. Public health units responsible for the caring and treatment of trauma and disabled patients are aware of losses from accidents, but find it difficult to overcome all of the obstacles. This is because preventative and controlling methods involve many other organizations. Additionally, a great number of administrators, both at the higher and lower levels in those organizations do not know why they should take responsibilities in this respect. Many organizations realizing the problem do not cooperate in the planning of synchronizing mitigating activities, resulting in failure of injury prevention and the increasing number of injuries.

In 1937, Godfrey adopted an epidemiological model in his analytical study of traumatism and achieved a systematic planning of injury control.
In 1949, Gordon proved that detailed epidemiological classification was viable for accident injuries as well as for other sudden or chronic diseases.

In 1970, Haddon from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety in the United States reported measures for injury control. He divided his preventative model into three phases, namely the prevention of accidents, the prevention of injuries in case of an accident, and the prevention of disability and death among trauma patients. Three relevant and controllable factors included people, vehicles and roads, and law enactment, as shown in the following table.

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