Accidental injuries in the young: from epidemiology to prevention.

Reducing children's injuries is an urgent task, if one is to decrease the toll of young human lives taken by accidents and the burden of handicaps resulting from them. Yet it is not an easy task, if one judges by the stability and resistance of this tremendous cause of death, disease and disability. This paper first reviews some conceptual difficulties in the definition of accidental injuries, their scaling and their recording; the assessment of risk and of the amount of exposure is also a trying process. Then some concrete problems are considered that deal with registration and surveys, and retrieval and use of information. Finally, some preventive outcomes are discussed, some models presented and a preventive strategy outlined. A series of WHO reports addressing these various issues are referred to.