Injury


Injury, also known as physical trauma, is damage to the body caused by external force. This may be caused by accidents, falls, hits, weapons, and other causes. Major trauma is injury that has the potential to cause prolonged disability or death.
In 2013, 4.8 million people world-wide died from injuries, up from 4.3 million in 1990. More than 30% of these deaths were transport-related injuries. In 2013, 367,000 children under the age of five died from injuries, down from 766,000 in 1990. Injuries are the cause of 9% of all deaths, and are the sixth-leading cause of death in the world.

Classification

The World Health Organization developed the International Classification of External Causes of Injury. Under this system, injuries are classified by:
and additional modules. These codes allow the identification of distributions of injuries in specific populations and case identification for more detailed research on causes and preventive efforts.
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics developed the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System. Under this system injuries are classified by
The OIICS was first published in 1992 and has been updated several times since.
The Orchard Sports Injury Classification System is used to classify injuries to enable research into specific sports injuries.

By cause

The injury severity score is a medical score to assess trauma severity. It correlates with mortality, morbidity, and hospitalization time after trauma. It is used to define the term major trauma, recognized when the ISS is greater than 15. The AIS Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine designed and updates the scale.