APOLLO: Strategies and best practices for the reduction of injuries
The coordinated APOLLO project started in December 2005 and will run for three years. APOLLO aims to provide:
(a) the evidence on the health and financial burden of injuries and easily measurable indicators and
(b) recommendations on how to overcome the barriers in applying existing best practices and efficient policies to decrease the most common injuries in the EU member states with specification of success and failure factors for implementation of injury prevention programs in all age groups and all types of injuries.
Concurrently, the implementation component of the project will focus on two major injury fields:
(a) falls among elderly and
(b) injuries among vulnerable road users. Both areas are chosen because they are linked to high injury burden and/or existence of good preventive measures and yet these measures have not been translated into effective prevention. The project will develop EU-wide prevention models, expand on recommendations from the strategic planning and measure the results, in terms of actual efficacy of the initiatives undertaken. Dissemination activities will culminate in scientific platforms with input from practitioners in the field, injury victims and policy makers. In total the proposal aims to deliver a pragmatic vision for change in injury prevention, develop tools to achieve it, implement parts of this change and multiply its results.
These activities have been divided into six integrated work packages. This project schemes to actively manage injuries at each level of this complex public health problem. Similar to the structure followed in other successful endeavours, the project will approach the prevention of injuries at the overall policy level, apply the priorities and strategies at the operational level and devote substantial resources to communicate the results.
This project brings together a wide range of European scientists and public health practitioners with expertise in all types of injury prevention in all age groups. The University of Athens is the main coordinator and will collaborate with 10 associated partners to carry out the provisioned deliverables.
