The International Collaborative Effort (ICE) on Injury Statistics is one of several international activities sponsored by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for the purpose of improving international comparability and quality of injury data. The ICE serves to provide the data needed to better understand the causes of injury and the most effective means of prevention and to provide a forum for international experts to discuss data related issues. The ICE focuses on injury definitions, data collection methodologies, coding and classification. The ICE is comprised of representatives from about a dozen countries including colleagues primarily from government, academia and injury prevention and control units. The first meeting of the ICE was held in May 1994 and meetings have been held nearly annually since then. ICE receives funding from the National Institute of Health's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Also discussed in this paper are the International Classification of External Causes of Injury (ICECI), a short version of the ICECI which is under development in the United States, and the Minimum Basic Data Set (MBDS) which is being developed by a multi-national group.
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