S OCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES IN INJURY RISKS A

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the World Health Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. [...] International prognoses suggest that the ranking of injuries as a cause of death and disability is on the rise, particularly in the younger segments of the population and in low- and middle-income countries (WHO 2002a; 2002b; WHO 2007). [...] It has even been proposed that the size of the gap between the mortality and morbidity rates of the most and the least advantaged groups can be regarded as indicative of the potential for improvement in a nation’s (or living area’s) health and safety (Blane 1995). [...] How was the review conducted and how is the report structured? Original research articles that examined socioeconomic disparities in injury risk or measured the effects of interventions across socioeconomic groups were obtained through a literature search in the databases of SafetyLit, the Cochrane Library and the National Library of Medicine’s Medline. [...] In the report, each section is introduced with a summary of the main findings and examples from different countries showing the size of the associations between socioeconomic status and injury.