Injury Center Connection Newsletter
Spring/Summer 2012

Data Releases and MMWRs

Child Injury Vital Signs and National Action Plan for Child Injury Prevention, April 16 

Child injuries are preventable, yet more than 9,000 children died from injuries in the United States in 2009. To help highlight the issue, the latest edition of CDC Vital Signs addresses the serious problem of child injury in the United States. It also highlights steps that everyone—including parents, states and communities, health care systems, employers, and more—can take to help save young lives. Visit the Vital Signs web site for more information.

In conjunction with Vital Signs, CDC released the National Action Plan for Child Injury Prevention, developed in partnership with more than 60 stakeholders. The goals of the National Action Plan are to raise awareness about the problem of child injuries and the effects on our nation, offer solutions by uniting stakeholders around a common set of goals and strategies, and to mobilize action to reduce child injury and death. Visit the National Action Plan web site for more information.

CDC study explores the economic burden of child maltreatment in the United States and implications for prevention, Child Abuse and Neglect, February 2012

The total lifetime estimated financial costs associated with just 1 year of confirmed cases of child maltreatment (physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and neglect) is approximately $124 billion, according to a report released by CDC, published in Child Abuse and Neglect, The International Journal. This study looked at confirmed child maltreatment cases, 1,740 fatal and 579,000 nonfatal, for a 12–month period. Visit the Violence Prevention web site to learn more and access the journal article.

CDC study explores role of drugs, drive-by shootings, and other crimes in gang homicides, January 26

This report is the first to compare gang homicides with other types of homicides using city-level data from CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). This report analyzed 2003–2008 data from large cities in 17 states, and showed that five cities had the highest levels of gang homicides―Los Angeles, CA, Oklahoma City, OK, Long Beach, CA, Oakland, CA, and Newark, NJ. Visit the media release page for more information.

Guidelines for Field Triage of Injured Patients, Recommendations of the National Expert Panel on Field Triage, 2011, MMWR Surveillance Summary, January 13

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers in the United States make decisions about the most appropriate destination hospital for injured patients daily. These decisions are made through a process known as "field triage," which involves an assessment not only of the physiology and anatomy of the injury, but also of the mechanism of the injury and special patient considerations. The goal of the field triage process is to ensure that injured patients are transported to a trauma center or hospital that is best equipped to manage their specific injuries, in an appropriate and timely manner, as the circumstances of injury might warrant. Visit the MMWR web site for the MMWR.