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An injury is any physical damage to the body. This can be the result of excessive force, heat, electricity, chemicals, or radiation. Injury can also be caused by a lack of energy, such as heat or oxygen.
Injuries can be classified as inflicted, either self-inflicted or inflicted by another person, or unintentional. It is sometimes unclear if the injury was inflicted or not.
Common causes of injury include falls, motor vehicle crashes, poisoning, drowning, assaults, sport or recreation-related injury, and self-harm.
Injuries can be mild, such as scrapes or bruises, or more severe, such as brain injury, resulting in disability or death. Common injuries include cuts and bruises, burns and scalds, fractures, sprains and strains, and concussion.
The BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit (BCIRPU) monitors
information on injuries, including:
BCIRPU researchers study these data and research how individuals, workplaces, governments, and societies can work to prevent these injuries from happening.
Learn more about our work around injury data on our Data & Surveillance page.
The top 5 causes of injury, for all ages:
Injuries exact a huge cost, both in lives and lost potential, and in financial costs.
Injury is the leading cause of death for all British Columbians age 1 to 44 years, before cancer or heart disease.
Injuries among children, youth, and young adults can result in years of lost potential.
Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) captures the number of years of life lost due to death from an adverse event.
Preventable Years of Life Lost (PrYLL) is calculated in the same way as PYLL, except it considers only preventable causes of deaths.
Avoidable deaths is a term used to speak to the effectiveness of health care, health promotion and disease prevention policies in preventing premature deaths. It counts the number of deaths for every 100,000 people that could potentially have been avoided through better treatment and prevention efforts.
Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) quantifies the burden of a negative event on society (e.g., natural disasters, injuries, illnesses). In essence, one DALY is one year of healthy life lost as a result of death or disability.
Each year, preventable injuries cost British Columbians over 4 billion dollars in total costs.1
This is equal to 11 million dollars per day.
Most injuries are both predictable and preventable.
We know we can reduce this problem.
Examples include:
Still, we can focus our efforts to help those who are at higher risk of injury.
For example:
Determining and acting upon the upstream investment for injury prevention will translate to injury costs avoided and financial resources available for reallocation to other important health care areas. Evidence-based solutions are available.
A multi-strategy approach is needed to reduce the impact of injuries.
We can engineer and design our roads, homes, and cities to make our environment safer—construct bike lanes, manufacture safer cars, install modifications in our homes—these can all help to prevent injury.
We can create laws to enforce safety measures and policies—this includes speeding tickets, bike helmet laws, and drinking and driving legislation.
Finally, we can educate ourselves and engage others on what we can do to prevent injuries. Injuries often happen as a direct result of the choices we make, such as wearing appropriate personal protective equipment—it takes a conscious effort to take that extra second to remind ourselves to make a different choice.
Learn more about what the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit is doing to reduce the burden of injuries News
1. Fahra Rajabali, MSc, Emilie Beaulieu, MD, Jennifer Smith, BFA, Ian Pike, PhD. The economic burden of injuries in British Columbia: Applying evidence to practice. BCMJ, Vol. 60, No. 7, September, 2018, Page(s) 358-364 – Clinical Articles.
The BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit is a leader in the production and transfer of injury prevention knowledge and the integration of evidence-based injury prevention practices in the daily lives of those at risk, those who care for them, and those with a mandate for public health and safety in British Columbia.
F508 – 4480 Oak St.
Vancouver, BC, V6H 3V4
Email: bcinjury@bcchr.ca
