Injuries in the European Union: Summary of injury statistics for the years 2012-2014

The sixth edition of “Injuries in the European Union” presents a summary of the most recent injury statistics from almost all EU- and associated countries, covering the years 2012-2014. The report presents data on non-fatal injuries produced by twenty-six countries for the European Injury Data Base (IDB), complemented by data on fatalities from the WHO-European Detailed Mortality Database. The IDB is a unique data source that contains standardised cross-national data on the external causes and circumstances of injuries examined and treated in emergency departments of hospitals, and from there admitted to in-patient care or released to home care or other ambulatory treatment. Thanks to IDB we can present a comprehensive picture of the entire spectrum of injury severity, main injury causes and circumstances. This is badly needed for guiding prevention policies and programmes policy sectors such as consumer safety, road safety and safety at work. The 26 members of the IDB-network, i.e. the national bodies which collect and share data in accordance with the agreed IDB-methodology, are to be congratulated for their efforts to enhance the reporting on the burden of injury and main injury characteristics at national and EU level. This report is produced in the framework of the BRIDGE-Health project, which aims to prepare the basis for a comprehensive EU health information system and which receives co-funding from the European Commission and its EC Health Programme.