Chapter 17: Injuries As a Problem

"The word injury is derived from the latin word for 'not right." This is certainly a proper term because the affect injuries have on the health of communities is all too correct.
There are two main types of injuries, unintentional and intentional.
The four characteristics of unintentional injuries are 1) they are unplanned 2) they usually are preceded by an unsafe act or condition 3) they often are accompanied by economic loss and 4) they interrupt the efficient completion of tasks. Unintentional injuries are also the 5th leading cause of death. Some examples of these injuries are motor vehicle crashes, poisonings, falls and others, such as fires and firearms. Some of the methods of prevention are education, regulation, and automatic protection and litigation.
Intentional injuries are things such as homicide, assault, and rape. In these cases, minorities and youth are the most at risk. Another issue in this category is family violence, including child and elder maltreatment.
As a whole, injuries play a huge role on the economic burden of the US as well. Each year, billions of dollars go towards the costs of these occurences. An example is $143 billion dollars for just fatal injuries alone. That number only makes up about 35% of the total money spent.

Our group was astonished by the numbers, and we enjoyed reviewing the statistics the chapter provided. Each day on the news, we here of things happening, but never really realized just how often. Having them broken down into categories really helped up to see the issues these incidents present to the communities.