Injury Surveillance & Research

Surveillance is the ongoing collection, analysis, interpretation, and timely dissemination of data. Injury surveillance is an important step in reducing the burden of injury because it improves understanding of the types of injuries, their cause, and their distribution across the population. Mortality, hospitalization and emergency department visits are used to profile injuries across Alberta and within specific populations and geographic areas of the province.

Injury prevention research can help to improve interventions aimed at reducing injuries and their effects by helping to understand risk factors for behaviour and injury, identify barriers to targeting and overcoming risk factors, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and determine the cost-effectiveness of particular interventions.

Web links

Injury surveillance and research are undertaken by a variety of provincial and national bodies, including the following:

• Alberta Centre For Injury Control and Research focuses on supporting injury prevention practitioners across the province. The Centre’s injury surveillance and research support includes providing  injury data based on  deaths, hospital admissions and emergency room visits; supporting, conducting and evaluating research in the field of injury control; and providing workshops and conference resources for professional development and education.
• Alberta Transportation: Office of Traffic Safety provides information and resources for health practitioners, teachers, other professionals and the public about traffic safety issues in Alberta. Vehicle safety, driver safety and pedestrian safety are addressed and the site presents traffic collision statistics. 
• BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit focuses on reducing the societal and economic burden of injury among all age groups in British Columbia through surveillance, research and knowledge development, knowledge synthesis, translation and education, and public information for the support of evidence-based, effective prevention measures. Although the Unit has a provincial mandate, the site provides information that will benefit professionals working outside of BC.
• Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) is a computerized information system that collects and analyzes data on injuries to people (mainly children) who are seen at the emergency rooms of the 10 pediatric hospitals and of 4 general hospitals in Canada. CHIRPP is a unique, richly detailed database of “pre-event” injury information. Site provides details of CHIRPP and includes injury facts and reports.
• Canadian Institute for Health Information is an independent, not-for-profit organization that works to inform health policies, support the effective delivery of health services and raise awareness of the factors that contribute to good health. Site includes interactive tools and databases to retrieve information as well as a range of products, services and tools including reports, publications, workshops, instruction manuals, and online courses.
• Centre for Suicide Prevention is an education centre specializing in curriculum development, training programs, and library and information services. Site provides suicide statistics for Alberta and Canada as well as access to The Suicide Information and Education Collection which is the world's largest English language collection of materials on suicide and suicidal behaviours with more than 37,000 references to print and audiovisual resources on prevention, intervention, and postvention.
• Injury Surveillance On-Line (Public Health Agency of Canada) provides the current injury statistics in Canada. Injury mortality and hospital separations can be viewed by province and territory, by age group, and over time. Site includes injury maps and a glossary.
• Safe Kids Canada  focuses on reducing unintentional injuries among children and youth in Canada. In addition to information and resources for the public and professionals, the site provides links to systematic reviews, injury reports, best practice guides, data bases and list serves in order to provide convenient summaries of the key data and/or credible evidence available for particular injury topics from a larger body of research literature.
• SMARTRISK aims to empower Canadians through education, programming and policy change to see and manage the risks in their lives in the smartest ways possible. Their programs focus on youth, the age group at peak risk for injury.  Site lists SMARTRISK youth programs and activities and includes information for parents of youth as well as research and evaluation activities. SMARTRISK produced the landmark Economic Burden of Injury studies.
• Traffic Injury Research Foundation is Canada's road safety research institute. It is a world leader in research, program and policy development, evaluation, and knowledge transfer focusing on the road user and behaviours that result in driver error and account for 80% of road crashes. Site provides a variety of publications: technical reports, articles, papers, a newsletter (TIRF Bulletin), and brochures.