General injury report- Public health Approach

Assignment 1: General injury report

Word limit: 1500?

In this report, you are asked to provide a general introduction to the injury problem for your peers. Keep a global focus and cover, for example, the size of the problem, common causes of injury, groups affected, trends over time, and societal burden. You should mention how injury data are collected (surveillance) and the injury pyramid (and what this means in relation to collected data).

You should ensure that you discuss in general terms, the opportunity for primary, secondary and tertiary prevention (i.e. don’t focus too much on specific injury mechanisms, rather indicate what these terms mean in relation to injury prevention). Highlight differences between high, and low and middle income countries in terms of burden of injury and opportunities for injury prevention.

EXTRA INFORMATION:

Injuries are a major cause of preventable death and disability worldwide. Time precludes us from covering “injury” as a topic in the course, despite its importance as a public health issue. Therefore, this assignment will assist you to explore this field yourself, and in so doing, apply a range of skills required for public health practice and management.

Before undertaking your assignment you are advised to review the slides in Moodle on “How to find public health information”.

Addressing the problem of injury in the population requires us to follow 4 steps known as the “Public Health Approach”.

This is illustrated in the following figure. We need to start by understanding the size of the problem, and identifying the risk factors. Such information will indicate how serious the injury problem is, and where prevention measures are most urgently needed. Then, we can evaluate potential interventions, and widely implement those found to be effective.

Assignments 1 require you to write scientific reports on the topic of injury (details under assignment headings), which would be suitable for hypothetical colleagues who are public health practitioners and managers. Therefore, you may assume a high level of knowledge of public health in general; though you should assume the group you are writing for has not worked in the area of injury prevention and control.

In presenting your work, please AVOID use of the word “accident”. Practitioners who work in injury prevention avoid the word “accident” because it implies that such events are unpredictable and unavoidable. As you do your research you will see that injuries are largely predictable and preventable.

In order to learn more about the practical application of the public health approach to INJURY PREVENTION, you might be interested to read this paper by

Jones et al: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2009.10.001]

Stay within the word limit for each assignment. Given the restrictive word limits (1500 words) you will have to be selective in what you write.

Keep to the point and avoid unnecessary detail or ‘waffle’. Sentences are preferred to dot points which should be used sparingly.

Your tutor will focus on your written text. You may use tables and diagrams for numerical data and illustrations to enhance the text, but they should be kept to a minimum. DO NOT provide large tables packed with information as a way of reducing your word limit as they will not be marked in any detail.

Ensure that your report is written scientifically. This means your work should include evidence to support any claims you make from a careful search of appropriate literature (scientific literature, government reports, and authoritative sources).

Your work must be appropriately referenced. References are NOT counted as part of your word limit. Note your word limit at the top of your assignment. Word limits will be checked when your work is marked.

You are asked to provide a general introduction to the injury problem for your peers. Keep a GLOBAL FOCUS and cover, for example, the size of the problem, common causes of injury, groups affected, trends over time, and societal burden.

You should mention how injury data are collected (surveillance) and the injury pyramid (and what this means in relation to collected data).

You will mention some of the main injury types, and the burden of injury (see last night’s lecture slides for Module 2), but you wouldn’t start with something as specific as needle stick injury.

You should ensure that you discuss in general terms, the opportunity for primary, secondary and tertiary prevention (i.e. don’t focus too much on specific injury mechanisms, rather indicate what these terms mean in relation to injury prevention).

Primary Prevention • Is that which is commenced before any disease process has started in health individuals >> Risk factor reduction e.g. immunisation, health education aimed at preventing children from smoking

Secondary Prevention • That which is instigated early in the natural history of the disease or illness process, and limits progression of that illness process. >> Population screening for disease and/or early management to reduce morbidity

Tertiary Prevention • Slows progression of the disease once it is fully established, and the objectives are to reduce disease complications, to facilitate rehabilitation and to minimize disability. >>

Rehabilitation ? Treatment

Highlight differences between high, and low and middle-income countries in terms of burden of injury and opportunities for injury prevention.

Burden of Disease

• A technique used to assess and compare the fatal and non-fatal effects of different diseases and injuries on population groups.

• Combines a wide range of data sources into a summary measure called the DALY – the disability adjusted life year

DALY = PYLL + YLD

I have provided a PowerPoint presentation on how to find public health information (Attached it to MY PROFILE). I think if you use the search term ‘injury’ and follow some of the suggestions in the presentation, you will find a great deal of information is readily available about injury. You are required to look at injury quite broadly (that is, lots of different injury mechanisms) – don’t just look at one type of injury only.

For example, DO NOT JUST do it on one type of injury ( i.e. burn injury, sharp injury, motor vehicle, suicide or alcohol related violence, etc.’) and ignore all other types of injury. It should be a GENERAL REPORT.

EXAMPLE

As an example of how one could write about injury, I provided an example from material on the web about “chronic disease”.

I used chronic disease as an example, how one could write about chronic disease in general terms, you could look at this document from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (first link), and the one below it from the Department of Health (second link).

http://www.aihw.gov.au/chronic-diseases/

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/chronic

Assignments help you to meet the following outcomes for this course:

• Access and interpret data and information for public health purposes ?

• Identify some of the determinants of health and disease in populations and discuss the ?management of risk factors ?

• Recognise the public health needs of population subgroups, and discuss reasons for ?differences in health status ?

• Demonstrate understanding of the principles of public health and its role in improving the ?health of the community ?

• Consider the impact of policy and programs on health ?

• Explain the importance of intersectoral collaboration in public health and the role of ?advocacy in achieving public health outcomes

?In assessing your work we will be looking at the following: ?

• Evidence to show an understanding of, and ability to source, interpret and reflect on relevant public health information. ?

• A depth of analysis, evidence of critical thinking and conclusions supported by evidence. ?

• Clear expression and an ability to write scientifically. ?

• Referencing which is undertaken accurately and as necessary. ?

• Adherence to word limit and format requirements (Please note: The word limit will be checked ?during marking). ?