In 1999 the Government's White Paper Saving Lives, Our Healthier Nation identified accidental injury as a priority for action. It set national targets to reduce the rates of death associated with accidental injury in England by 2010 by at least one-fifth; and to reduce the rate of serious injury by at least one-tenth. The policies and research programmes of government departments with responsibilities for reducing accidental injury or of activities that might lead to injury, such as sport, are reviewed. The research programmes and expenditure profiles of research councils and charitable trusts were also considered. It was found that there is a small amount of injury research aimed at a large injury problem. Multi-disciplinary research is therefore needed to bring about greater understanding of the context in which accidental injury occurs. Different financiers/departments commission research in different ways, which tends to mean that methodology cultures grow up amongst different groups of researchers depending on the style of research methodology favoured by the financier. This can lead to little overlap in research methodology and dissemination practice between different groups of researchers engaged in injury prevention work, which is a barrier to increasing the capacity to take forward a multi-disciplinary research agenda. For the covering abstract see ITRD E157496
Abstract