Child injury in a changing world

Abstract

The importance of child injuries has now been recognised as a significant public health problem internationally. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have recently published the first world report on child injury prevention. As infectious diseases decline, the relative importance of injury has increased, but the pace of change of global processes means that absolute increases in injury may occur over the next 20–30 years. This paper examines child injury in a changing world by outlining the ways in which the forces of globalisation, urbanisation, motorisation and environmental change could have an impact on injury epidemiology and policy.

We consider how those in public health and those in the injury field should respond to the changing world of injury. Child injury prevention needs to be incorporated into planning for the rapidly changing urban environments of low-income countries and strategies devised for the large numbers of people displaced by environmental change.

Keywords:

• globalisation
• urbanisation
• motorisation
• environmental change
• health inequalities

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Professor Alan Emond of the University of Bristol, UK, and Dr Christine Branche of the Centres for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA, for their helpful comments on drafts of the paper.