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| EuroSafe releases the latest statistics on injuries due to accident and acts of violence in the EU (15 December 2009) |
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Accidents and violence are a major public health problem, killing more than a quarter of a million people in the EU-27 each year and causing millions of injuries that need hospital treatment, a huge proportion of which are resulting in permanent disabilities. Injuries are the fourth most common cause of death, after cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and respiratory diseases.
EuroSafe has released the latest injury statistics in its 2009-report ‘Injuries in the European Union - Statistics Summary 2005 – 2007’. The 2009-report presents data collected over the years 2005-2007 and reveals that each year a staggering 7 million people are admitted to hospitals and 35 million people are treated as hospital outpatients as a result of an accident or violence related injury. | |
More key facts and figures from the report
Fatal injuries
- Every two minutes someone dies of a fatal injury - this adds up to a quarter of a million injury deaths each year within the EU.
- There is a huge difference in injury fatalities throughout the EU. More than 100,000 lives could be saved each year if every country in the EU-27 reduced its injury mortality rate to the same level as in the country that currently has the lowest rate of fatal injuries in the EU.
Non-fatal injuries
- Each year, a massive €15 billion is being spent on hospital and medical costs just treating the injury casualties admitted to hospital.
- Three quarters of all injuries occur at home or in leisure time.
- As to road traffic and work related injuries, the trend is fortunately levelling off over the past few years, but for home and leisure injuries the trend is still rising.
Injury data are needed from hospitals
Injury and violence-related data can be obtained from a wide range of sources, such as police and ambulance reports and national insurance schemes. Unfortunately, these sources of data are fragmented and often incomplete.
By contrast, hospitals provide unique access to information on injury victims, in particular in relation to serious injuries that are treated in accident and emergency departments at hospitals.
Therefore, thirteen EU Member States are currently collecting on a routine base injury data in such accident and emergency settings. Altogether, they are able to report now on around 350.000 cases each year, with details on the place of occurrence and the circumstances of the injury evenmt. These data are being stored and made publicly available through the European Injury Data Base (IDB), hosted by the directorate general for public health of the European Commission.
EU-wide coverage required
The challenge is now to work towards a full EU-wide coverage of the IDB system, as only half of the Member States are able to provide more precise information about circumstances and causes of injuries. Without such information, governments are in the dark as to prevention measures they need to take and therefore failing to meet minimum standards as to health and safety of their citizens.
Therefore EuroSafe pleas for national IDB-systems to become mandatory for all member states. The EU-wide implementation of injury surveillance systems will empower national authorities and related safety agencies to really make a difference in preventing the enormous trail of destruction that injuries leave behind. The EU-Regulation on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work (OJ 2008, L 354/70) provides an opportunity for such a binding system.
2009-report 'Injuries in the European Union'
Press release
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