The work of the Task Force on the Burden of Injury is carried out by two Working Groups: 1) The Costs of Injuries and 2) Post-injury levels of functioning and disability. The profiles of each Working Group have been kept separate in order to clearly distinguish their different activities.
 Working Party on the Costs of Injury
 Working Party on Quantifying post-injury levels of functioning and disability
Rationale
Disabilities (i.e. reduced levels of functioning resulting from diseases or injuries) are increasingly recognised as an important component of a population’s health. However, within the injury field, empirical, comparable and representative epidemiological data on the incidence, severity and duration of disabilities are scarce and incomplete.
For the majority of injury patients there is hardly any empirical disability data available. In addition, the available knowledge is difficult to interpret. Filling these data gaps is a prerequisite for the meaningful execution of burden of injury studies and studies into the cost-effectiveness of injury control measures.
Scope
Empirical work in the area of post-injury levels of functioning and disability.
Partners
- Consumer Safety Institute, the Netherlands
- Erasmus Medical Centre, the Netherlands
- Hillerød Sygehus - Frederiksborg Amts Sundhedsvæsen, Denmark
- Austrian Road Safety Board / Dept. of Home, Leisure & Sports
- University of Wales, UK
Within the next few years the group should extend into a network of researchers and clinicians involved in quantifying post-injury levels of functioning and disability from as many European countries as possible.
For individual contact details please go to the Contact Directory
Objectives
- To summarise the theoretical background of quantifying post-injury levels of functioning and disability;
- To formulate recommendations for future theoretical and empirical work ('How should the European injury research community proceed with this subject?').
- To develop practical guidelines for empirical follow-up studies into post-injury levels of functioning for selected types of injury. These guidelines will contain advice on measurement instruments and moments, methods of data acquisition, additional background variables to be collected and their (internationally) accepted methods, the numbers of patients to be included, and types of analyses to be performed and possible methods to use.
- To implement a ‘European disability follow-up study’ testing the guidelines for selected types of injury: open wounds, poisoning, ankle/foot sprain, wrist fracture, hip fracture, brain injury, spinal cord injury, and multitrauma.
Results
The Working Party has published 2 reports to date:
- Draft report on Quantifying post-injury levels of functioning and disability: why and how?(2003). This report includes an overview of the theoretical background of the issue, including guidelines for collecting empirical data.
- Draft guidelines for the conduction of empirical studies into injury-related disability (2005)
Coordinating office
Consumer Safety Institute, The Netherlands
Contact: Saakje Mulder, (s.mulder@consafe.nl) |
