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The World Bank considers injury the fastest growing cause of morbidity and mortality in the world and describes it as

“… the (least) researched epidemic of the 20 th Century”. In Australia, injuries account for almost 10% of both deaths and hospital admissions and impact disproportionately on the young. In terms of years of potential life lost (up to age 75) injury outweighs cancer and heart disease combined by a factor of more than two.

Did you know?

  • Each year in Victoria, around 400 people are killed in road crashes.
  • Around a further 6,000 are seriously injured and 17,500 receive injuries that are not severe.
  • This translates to: a fatality every 22.5 hours; a serious injury every 85 minutes; and a non-serious injury every 30 minutes throughout the whole year.
  • Nevertheless, these figures represent a reduction of almost 50% on the levels of road trauma seen in the late 1980s.
  • Around 45,000 people each year are involved in road crashes where at least one person in the crash is injured. This represents only a 1% chance that a Victorian will be involved in an injury producing crash in any year, but a 53% chance they will be involved in an injury producing crash over a lifetime of 75 years.
  • Each year about 300 Australian children (aged 0-14 years) are killed and 60,000 hospitalised by unintentional injuries - the kind often referred to as 'accidents'.   Many of these can be easily prevented by simple means.
  • 75% of all child deaths from unintentional injury are the result of the following:
    • car crashes
    • child pedestrians being hit by motor vehicles
    • drowning – in particular young children killed in home pools
    • house fires
  • Child injury deaths have been halved since 1979, from about two a day to one per day.   While good progress has been made, Kidsafe estimates a further 80 deaths and 20,000 hopsitalisations could be prevented annually by implementing known safety countermeasures.
  • Injury is the major cause of death for people aged 1-44
  • The three main causes of injury-related death are (in order):
    • suicide
    • road crashes
    • falls
  • The most common injury related causes of admission to hospital are (again in order):
    • falls
    • road crashes
    • self inflicted injury

With a career in road safety or injury prevention you really can make a difference.