Child injury control: surveillance and research questions

Injury is the leading cause of death for every year but the first of a child's life and, additionally, generates enormous costs in health care, disability, pain, and suffering. Research and programmatic efforts for injury control continue to have low priority relative to their modest costs and potential to reduce health-care and other costs to society. Modest improvements in data systems would lead to more effective targeting of injury control efforts that are useful in preventing injuries. Analytic studies of changeable risk factors and effectiveness of interventions would widen the range of available interventions and their cost-effectiveness.