Injuries are one of the most serious public health problems facing the United States today. Through premature death, disability, medical cost and lost productivity, injuries impact the health and welfare of all Americans. Deaths only begin to tell the story. Although many injuries are minor, a large proportion result in fractures, amputations, burns, or other significant injuries that have far-reaching consequences. Now, for the first time in over 15 years, we have comprehensive estimates of the impact of these injuries in economic terms. This book updates a landmark Report to Congress from 1989. Since the report, no undertaking has addressed the incidence and economic burden of injuries with more timely data, despite major changes in the fields of prevention, reporting, and surveillance. Since the mid-eighties, new safety technologies have been developed to prevent injuries or to decrease the severity of injuries, and new policies and laws have been enacted to promote injury prevention. Chapter topics include incidence by detailed categorizations, lifetime medical costs and productivity losses as a result of injuries, and a discussion of recent trends. Lavishly illustrated with tables and graphs, this volume is a valuable reference for public health practitioners, researchers, and students alike.

Injuries are the leading cause of death and disability among people under age 35 in the United States. Despite great strides in injury prevention over the decades, injuries result in 150,000 deaths, 2.6 million hospitalizations, and 36 million visits to the emergency room each year. Reducing the Burden of Injury describes the cost and magnitude of the injury problem in America and looks critically at the current response by the public and private sectors, including: Data and surveillance needs. Research priorities. Trauma care systems development. Infrastructure support, including training for injury professionals. Firearm safety. Coordination among federal agencies. The authors define the field of injury and establish boundaries for the field regarding intentional injuries. This book highlights the crosscutting nature of the injury field, identifies opportunities to leverage resources and expertise of the numerous parties involved, and discusses issues regarding leadership at the federal level.

As the debate over health care reform continues, costs have become a critical measure in the many plans and proposals to come before us. Knowing costs is important because it allows comparisons across such disparate health conditions as AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, and cancer. This book presents the results of a major study estimating the large and largely overlooked costs of occupational injury and illness--costs as large as those for cancer and over four times the costs of AIDS. The incidence and mortality of occupational injury and illness were assessed by reviewing data from national surveys and applied an attributable-risk-proportion method. Costs were assessed using the human capital method that decomposes costs into direct categories such as medical costs and insurance administration expenses, as well as indirect categories such as lost earnings and lost fringe benefits. The total is estimated to be $155 billion and is likely to be low as it does not include costs associated with pain and suffering or of home care provided by family members. Invaluable as an aid in the analysis of policy issues, Costs of Occupational Injuryand Illness will serve as a resource and reference for economists, policy analysts, public health researchers, insurance administrators, labor unions and labor lawyers, benefits managers, and environmental scientists, among others. J. Paul Leigh is Professor in the School of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of California, Davis. Stephen Markowitz, M.D., is Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, City University of New York Medical School. Marianne Fahs is Director of the Health Policy Research Center, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University. Philip Landrigan, M.D., is Wise Professor and Chair of the Department of Community Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York.

Injuries are one of the most serious public health problems facing the United States today. Through premature death, disability, medical cost and lost productivity, injuries impact the health and welfare of all Americans. Deaths only begin to tell the story. Although many injuries are minor, a large proportion result in fractures, amputations, burns, or other significant injuries that have far-reaching consequences. Now, for the first time in over 15 years, we have comprehensive estimates of the impact of these injuries in economic terms. This book updates a landmark Report to Congress from 1989. Since the report, no undertaking has addressed the incidence and economic burden of injuries with more timely data, despite major changes in the fields of prevention, reporting, and surveillance. Since the mid-eighties, new safety technologies have been developed to prevent injuries or to decrease the severity of injuries, and new policies and laws have been enacted to promote injury prevention. Chapter topics include incidence by detailed categorizations, lifetime medical costs and productivity losses as a result of injuries, and a discussion of recent trends. Lavishly illustrated with tables and graphs, this volume is a valuable reference for public health practitioners, researchers, and students alike.

Every community is affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). Causes as diverse as falls, sports injuries, vehicle collisions, domestic violence, and military incidents can result in injuries across a spectrum of severity and age groups. Just as the many causes of TBI and the people who experience it are diverse, so too are the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral changes that can occur following injury. The overall TBI ecosystem is not limited to healthcare and research, but includes the related systems that administer and finance healthcare, accredit care facilities, and provide regulatory approval and oversight of products and therapies. TBI also intersects with the wide range of community organizations and institutions in which people return to learning, work, and play, including the education system, work environments, professional and amateur sports associations, the criminal justice system, and others. Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress examines the current landscape of basic, translational, and clinical TBI research and identifies gaps and opportunities to accelerate research progress and improve care with a focus on the biological, psychological, sociological, and ecological impacts. This report calls not merely for improvement, but for a transformation of attitudes, understanding, investments, and care systems for TBI.

Clinical practice related to sleep problems and sleep disorders has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, but scientific research is not keeping pace. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome are three examples of very common disorders for which we have little biological information. This new book cuts across a variety of medical disciplines such as neurology, pulmonology, pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, psychology, otolaryngology, and nursing, as well as other medical practices with an interest in the management of sleep pathology. This area of research is not limited to very young and old patientsâ€"sleep disorders reach across all ages and ethnicities. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation presents a structured analysis that explores the following: Improving awareness among the general public and health care professionals. Increasing investment in interdisciplinary somnology and sleep medicine research training and mentoring activities. Validating and developing new and existing technologies for diagnosis and treatment. This book will be of interest to those looking to learn more about the enormous public health burden of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation and the strikingly limited capacity of the health care enterprise to identify and treat the majority of individuals suffering from sleep problems.

This publication seeks to provide a global overview of the nature and extent of injury mortality and morbidity in the form of user-friendly tables and charts. It is hoped that the graphical representation of the main patterns of the burden of disease due to injury will raise awareness of the importance of injuries as a public health issue and facilitate the implementation of effective prevention programs.