Using local injury surveillance for community-based injury prevention: an analysis of Scandinavian WHO Safe Community and Canadian Safe Community Foundation programmes

Abstract

Injury surveillance is widely recognized as a critical prerequisite for effective injury prevention, yet few studies have investigated its use by community-based injury prevention programmes. This study examined the extent to which local injury data were collected, documented, analysed, linked to injury prevention action and used for evaluation among WHO Safe Communities in Scandinavia (25 programmes) and the Canadian Safe Community Foundation (SCF) network (16 programmes). For each programme, a key informant with relevant local knowledge was selected to respond to an emailed questionnaire. The study demonstrates that community-based injury prevention programmes experience difficulties accessing and effectively utilizing local injury surveillance data. The findings suggest that the responding SCF programmes approach injury prevention more scientifically than the Scandinavian WHO-designated Safe Community programmes, by making greater use of injury surveillance for assessment, integration into prevention strategies and measures, and evaluation. Despite study limitations, such as the low response rate among Canadian programmes and a large number of non-responses to two questions, the results highlight the importance of, and need for, greater use of local injury surveillance.

Keywords:

• Local data
• Injury surveillance
• Community-based

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Dawn Vallet of the SCF network for help with distribution of the questionnaire among Canadian programmes and for overall support during the entire research project. Many thanks also to Felicia Gabrielsson-Järhult and Kent Lindqvist for constructive criticisms on this paper. This study was supported by grants from the Swedish National Rescue Services Board.