Non fatal injuries in São Paulo State

Abstract

Injuries are a major public health concern to many countries around the world. This problem causes a great suffering for the victims, their families, friends and the whole society. Although it is a problem due to multiples factors, its impact on health indicators can be reduced, in the same way that was possible to reach the reduction of the infectious diseases and the infant mortality. The consequences of the injuries for the health system and for society point out the need of improvement of the information systems in order to provide scientific bases to the development of prevention public politics, besides the establishment of appropriate services to give health care and support the victims. In most countries around the world, the knowledge of the impact of injuries comes from the analysis of the mortality data; just few countries collect data from injuries hospitalization. There are few studies about injuries in emergency departments (ED). In Brazil the System of Information of Mortality is considered of good quality, allowing having a good picture of the main types of accidents and violence that determine deaths. It is also possible to analysis the data of injuries hospitalization from the Public Health System. However, data concerning the injuries in EDs are considered a gap of the scientific knowledge of the problem. The aim of this study is to develop a model of an injury surveillance system in EDs for S. Paulo state, in order to know the magnitude of the problem, the characteristics of the victim, the circumstances of these events and the nature of the injuries. Such system should allow to link data from the mortality and hospitalization systems. Besides, this system should point other studies to identify risk factors and protecting factors for injuries. The material of the study is the universe of injuries collected in six EDs in São Paulo state, from November 2004 to October 2005. The database almost has 50 thousand registers. The variables were regarding demographics information (age; sex; race/color; marital status; profession; education and residence place); characteristics of the accident or violence (occurrence place, cause type expresses, relationship aggressor/victim); the injury nature and part of the body injured. For the reason of the recognized experience conducting injuries surveillance systems, the analysis of that database will be made at the National Center it goes Injury Control and Prevention, Centers goes Diseases Control and Prevention (NCIPC/CDC). These results will be compared to the injury ED data collected in other countries of Latin America and data from the United States of America. Also the analysis of this database should point analytical new studies. The NCIPC / CDC have accumulated experience in conducting studies to identification association of risk factors and protecting factors with injuries. It is intended to begin a scientific cooperation that can bring great benefit to the researches accomplished in that area. (AU)