Chapter 17: Injuries

Injuries occur all the time. They effect society in a number of ways. One of the biggest ways include how much money it costs. The cost is not only the medical bill, but the cost of time lost, lost productivity to employers, and loss of income to the individual; if the injury is severe enough.

Injuries can be unintentional such as a fall or they can be intentional such as assault. To make sure that there is a universal understanding of these terms definitions are given at the begining of the chapter. I was unaware that the term accident is frowned up because it suggests that it was unpreventable. Other definitions given include unsafe act and hazards. After the definiton statistics are given on the cost of injuries to society.

The chapter focuses on both types of injuries. The first discussed is unintentional injuries. In 2004 there were, 112,012 deaths caused by unintentional injuries. Some causes include motor vehicle crashes, poisonings, and falls. Certain people tend to be more prone to unintentional injuries. Those age newborn to 44, are more likely to die from unitentional injuries than those that are old. Males and minorites are also at a higher risk. These injuries can occur at home, work, on the road, and anywhere else. Alcohol and drugs contribute to these injuries, especially those sustained in a car. There have been many ideas and contributors to injury prevention. The most common approaches to prevent injury is thru education, regulation, passive protection, and litigation.

Intentional injuries were looked at in a similar way. The forms of intentional injury include assaults, rapes, suicides, maltreatment and others. Firearms directly tie into intentional injury. Only 2.5% of all firearms fatalities are considered unintentional. Intentional injuries directly tie to the violence in our society. This violence include individual violence and family violence. No one is safe from chance violence and maltreatment. Children and the elderly are likely to become victims because it is harder for them to defend themselves. Violence is very common is schools as well.

There were a few things that really stood out in this chapter. The first thing was that unintentional injuries can be seasonal. Most fires, and injuries resulting from, happen in the winter becausae of the elevated use of stoves for heat. The same with drownings in the Summer. This made sense but I just hadn't really mad the conclusion before. The different approaches to prevention also jumped out at me. I think it is very smart to use a multitude of approaches to help with problems. An example of this would be with Motor Vehicle crashes. One needs to be educated about driving, regulations controling the speed should be in place, and airbags should be present. This uses three of the four approaches.

The last thing that really jumped at me was about Child maltreatment. It reminds me of the book I read about a child whose mother abuses him. I have seen far to many children in my area being neglected or abused. It upsets me. I don't know how someone can bring a child into the world and not want to love and care for them.