On June 15 and 16, 1998, NHTSA sponsored a conference to discuss the current state of knowledge of injury outcomes, with an emphasis on motor vehicle crash injuries. The purposes of the conference were to share the current state of knowledge on measuring injury outcomes with the agency's partners in industry, government and academe, and to provide the agency with information from which an agenda for further work could be developed. Presentations were made on health status measures, QALYS and DALYS, societal costs, functional capacity, paediatric functional capacity, behavioural effects, current status of ICD-10 CM, sources of payments, data linkage an a summary of the international conference on Measuring the Burden of Injury held in The Netherlands in May, 1998. Three breakout sessions provided the audience an opportunity to discuss the issues and express their views concerning economic measures, behavioural effects and data. Participants also provided written comments. A synthesis of the conference results suggest the following topics for inclusion in any agenda for future work on injury outcomes: update the economic costs of injury, continue development of the Functional Capacity Index and its derivatives, develop a method for quantifying psychosocial outcomes suitable for police analysis applications, develop aggregated data bases derived from linked data, develop improved methods for estimating the outcome of multiple injuries, improve the understanding of the relationship of actual injury outcomes to those implied in tests using cadavers, dummies, test devices and mathematical modelling, and develop an understanding of the relationship among economic, physical and behavioural outcomes. (A)
Abstract