Advancing Injury Prevention and Trauma Care in North America and Globally

Historically, in all societies, infectious diseases were the leading cause ofdeath and disability. This pattern changed in the past two centuries in high-income countries with decreases in infection as a result of improved sanita-tion and medical care and with consequent increases in life expectancy.Some of these gains were offset by increases by other disease, such as cancer,heart disease, and injury. In most high-income countries today injury is theleading cause of death between age 1 and 44. Similar trends are underway intoday’s low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with decreases in mostinfectious diseases, except HIV-AIDS, and also with increases in many in-jury-related causes of death, especially from road traffic. Because of recentincreases in use of motorized transport globally, road traffic crashes havenow become a leading cause of death among young, working-aged adultsin almost every country. In the age group 15 to 44 years, road traffic deathsare second only to HIV-AIDS as a cause of death [1–3].