ABSTRACT
Injury is a global public health problem and the dominant cause of morbidity and mortality among the young, particularly in industrialized countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 5.8 million fatalities due to injury in 2000 (1). Injury is the seventh cause of death worldwide (Tables 1 and 2), and the number one cause of death in the young (ages 1-44) in the United States. Historically, infectious diseases have been the principle source of death and disability. Advances in public health measures during the 20th century have resulted in a decrease in the global burden of infectious disease. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and related complications created a brief exception to this trend. In the United States, death due to AIDS had temporarily surpassed injury as the pre-eminent etiology of premature death in the 35 to 44 age group (2). However, due to public health education on transmissibility and the development of numerous antiretroviral therapies (Volume 2, Chapter 52), HIV has now returned to the fifth most common cause of death (Fig. 1).
