This week my attention was drawn to the Save the Children’s report “Food for Thought: Tackling child malnutrition to unlock potential and boost prosperity” (read more at http://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae-432c-9bd0-df91d2eba74a%7D/FOOD_FOR_THOUGHT.PDF). As I read this report, I had to reassess exactly what I believed injury to be. The most basic definition of injury is damage or harm which is inflicted […]
Category: Developing countries
Experts concerned over the car safety features in Brazil
Rafael Consunji shared an interesting news feature on passenger car safety standards in Brazil written by Bradley Brooks of the Associated Press (Link: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-cars-made-brazil-deadly-180411170.html). Brooks in his feature, based on experts’ opinions, indicates that passenger cars made by the international automakers in Brazil lack standard safety features, which they usually provide in the cars […]
High-income is not necessarily associated with better road safety performance in the Eastern Mediterranean Region
There is an interesting relationship between national income and road safety that becomes apparent when going through the second global status report on road safety (GSRRS). Numerous studies have shown that the wealth of a country is one of the major determinants of road fatality risk. One study by Koptis and Cropper (2005) showed that, […]
Several brief notes
These are all from recent postings on FairWarning, which, once again I urge you to visit regularly and to support. Suicide rate in military rising quickly despite the withdrawal from Iraq and pullback in Afghanistan.Suicide among active-duty troops hit a record of 350 in 2012, twice as many as a decade before. The suicide rate in […]
Collapse of factory in Bangladesh: assigning blame fully
By now most readers will have learned about the horrific collapse of a factory in Bangladesh killing hundreds of low-paid workers and injury many others. The owner has been arrested and that seems logical. But equally logical it seems to me, is to hold the authorities responsible for workplace safety responsible. I see this as […]
Global Progress towards Comprehensive Legislation for Road Safety
On March 14th, 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the second Global Status Report on Road Safety* (GSRRS-2013). Overall, the GSRRS-2013 concludes that “the number of road traffic deaths each year has not increased (from 2007 to 2011) – but remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year.” The GSRRS-2013 also noted the global […]
“Bring it on” in the 2nd United Nations Global Road Safety Week (6th -12th May 2013)
The 2nd United Nations (UN) Global Road Safety Week is to be held from 6th to 12th May 2013. This week marks the beginning of the third year of a 10-year-long international initiative, “the Decade of Action for Road Safety.” The focus of this week is to raise awareness about pedestrian safety. This week has […]
Air pollution: Cans of air the solution?
In a story circulating the globe, it seems that an enterprising businessman has come up with an interesting approach to China’s air pollution woes: Fresh air in a can. China unfortunately is renowned as a country with chronic air pollution in it’s major cities, and this is problematic for the millions of people exposed to this […]
The true ‘cost’ of violence against women
The enormous ‘cost’ of violence against women living in a dozen latin American and Caribbean countries has been revealed in a report produced by the Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), in collaboration with the U. S. Centers for Diseease Control and Prevention (CDC), released earlier this month (see link below). The immense physical, […]
Injury Research in LMICs Requires a Fundamental Directional Change
I want to make the point that an essential shift in injury research from burden assessment to hypothesis testing is still lagging in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) Every month hundreds of injury research publications originating from Low- and Middle-Income Countries find a place in scientific journals. Recent bibliographic analysis has revealed that the numbers […]