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Surveillance of Injury Mortality

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Injury Research

Abstract

Tracking injury mortality is fundamental to injury surveillance because death is both a severe and an easily measured outcome. The focus of this chapter is the surveillance of fatal injuries using existing data systems, primarily from the USA, although aspects of systems from some other countries are discussed. The chapter describes data sources for injury mortality surveillance with a focus on vital statistics data, provides an overview of major classification systems for injury mortality, summarizes issues related to defining cases in injury mortality data systems, presents ways that injury mortality data are disseminated, provides methods to evaluate injury mortality surveillance systems, and concludes with a discussion of future directions for injury mortality surveillance. Methodological considerations in the surveillance of all injury deaths and by intent of injury (e.g., homicide), mechanism of injury (e.g., motor vehicle crash), and nature of injury (e.g., traumatic brain injury or hip fracture) during a specified activity (e.g., occupational injuries) or in a specified place (e.g., in the home) are discussed throughout the chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Room 6424, 3311 Toledo Road, Hyattsville, MD, 20782, USA

    Margaret Warner PhD

  2. Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Room 6423, 3311 Toledo Road, Hyattsville, MD, 20782, USA

    Li-Hui Chen PhD

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  1. Margaret Warner PhD
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Correspondence to Margaret Warner PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, New York, USA

    Guohua Li

  2. Center for Injury Research and Policy, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA

    Susan P. Baker

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Warner, M., Chen, LH. (2012). Surveillance of Injury Mortality. In: Li, G., Baker, S. (eds) Injury Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1599-2_1

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