Glossary
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Advocacy
A method of educating legislators, their staff, government employees, or the general public about a program or injury-related issue.
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
ASTHO is a non-profit membership association representing the chiefs of state and territorial health agencies who work to transform public health within states and territories to help members dramatically improve health and wellness.
Behavioral Risk Factor Survey System (BRFSS)
BRFSS uses telephone surveys to track health risk behaviors in the United States to improve the health of the American people.
Best Practices
Best practices are practices that have been formally evaluated and found to be effective.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The CDC is the nation's premier public health agency working to ensure healthy people in a healthy world.
Child Abuse
A general term encompassing physical, psychological and/or emotional abuse, sexual abuse, or sexual exploitation and neglect.
Coalition
An organization of individuals representing a variety of interest groups who come together to share resources, plan, and work together.
Community
A collective of people identified by common values and mutual concern for the development and well-being of their group or geographical area.
Cost-Benefit
A measure of the cost of an intervention relative to the benefits it yields, usually expressed as a ratio of dollar spent on the program.
Cost-Effectiveness
A measure of the cost of an intervention relative to its impact, usually expressed in dollars per unit of effect.
Cultural Competence
A set of values, behaviors, attitudes, and practices within a system, organization, program, or among individuals, which enables them to work effectively cross culturally. Refers to the ability to honor and respect the beliefs, language, interpersonal styles, and behaviors of individuals and families receiving services.
Determinants of Health
The forces predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing lifestyles, or shaping environmental conditions of living, in ways that affect the health of populations.
Disability
The inability to perform specific functions resulting from disease, injury, or birth defects.
E codes
Numerical designations of the external cause of injury developed by the World Health Organization for its International Classification of Disease System.
Ecological Assessment
It is the delineation of factors that predispose, enable, and reinforce a specific behavior or that through behavior affect environmental change. It also involves a systemic assessment of factors in the social and physical environment that interact with behavior to produce health effects or quality-of-life outcomes.
Ecology
It is the study of the web of relationships among the behaviors of individuals and populations and their environments, both social and physical.
Education/Behavior Change Interventions
Preventive measures involving the education of the population at large, targeted groups, or individuals and efforts to alter specific injury-related behaviors.
Effectiveness
It is the extent to which the intended (injury intervention) effect or benefits that could be achieved under optimal conditions are achieved in practice.
Efficacy
It is the extent to which an intervention can be shown to be beneficial under optimal conditions.
Engineering/Technology Interventions
Preventive measures involving changes in the design of products or in the physical environment.
Environment
The physical and psychosocial setting in which injuries occur.
Epidemiology
The study of the occurrence and distribution of disease and injuries.
Epidemiological Assessment
The delineation of the extent, distribution, and cause of a health problem in a defined population.
Evaluation
The comparison of an object of interest with a standard of acceptability.
Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)
FARS annually tracks national statistics regarding motor-vehicle crash deaths occurring on a public roadway.
Focus-Group Method
Used in testing the perception and receptivity of a target population to an idea or method by recording the reactions of a sample of 8 to 10 people discussing it with each other.
Formative Evaluation
Any combination of measurements obtained and judgments made before or during the implementation of materials, methods, activities, or programs to control, assure, or improve the quality of performance or delivery.
Goal
A statement of a program's intention to bring about long-term improvements in an injury problem.
Good Practices
Good practices are those that have not been formally evaluated but use innovative approaches that demonstrate positive results.
Haddon Matrix
A conceptual model that systematically breaks down the injury problem into temporal as well as epidemiological components to identify injury prevention countermeasures.
Health Belief Model
A paradigm used to predict and explain health behavior, based on value-expectancy theory.
Health Education
Any planned combination of learning experiences designed to predispose, enable, and reinforce voluntary behavior conducive to health in individuals, groups, or communities.
Health Promotion
Any planned combination of educational, regulatory, and organizational supports for actions and conditions of living conducive to the health of individuals, groups, or communities.
Host
The injured individual.
Impact Evaluation
The assessment of program effects on intermediate objectives including changes in predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors, as well as behavioral and environmental changes.
Incidence
A measure of the frequency of occurrence of a health problem (injury) in a population based on the number of new cases over a given period of time (usually one year).
Injury
Unintentional or intentional damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to thermal, mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen.
Injury Rate
A statistical measure describing the number of injuries expected to occur in a defined number of people (usually 100,000) within a defined period of time (usually 1 year).
Intentional Injuries
Injuries that result from purposeful human action whether directed at oneself (self-directed) or others (assaultive), sometimes referred to as violent injuries.
International Classification of Diseases (ICD)
ICD is an international standard used to classify disease and other health problems developed by the World Health Organization.
Injury Control and Risk Surveys (ICARIS-1, ICARIS-2)
ICARIS-1 and ICARIS-2 were used to collect data on injuries and injury risk factors using random digit dial telephone surveys of the non-institutionalized English- and Spanish-speaking population aged 18 and older in the 50 states and the District of Colombia.
Legislative/Enforcement Interventions
Preventive measures involving the enactment or enforcement of laws or regulations.
Morbidity
The rate of illness or injury in a community or population.
Mortality
The rate of death in a community or population.
National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
NACCHO is a national organization representing local health departments that supports efforts to protect and improve the health of all people of all communities.
National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
NHIS collects current statistical information on the health of civilian non-institutionalized populations of the United States, including data on illness and disability and the services rendered for or because of such conditions.
National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS)
NFIRS was created to gather and analyze information on the nature and causes of injuries, deaths, and property loss resulting from fires in the United States and to develop uniform data reporting methods that can be used to more accurately assess and combat the fire problem at a national level.
National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)
NVDRS was created to provide accurate and timely violent death-related information to inform decision makers about the magnitude and characteristics of the problem in the United Sates and to provide a tool for evaluation of state-based violence prevention programs and policies.
National Vital Statistics System (NVSS)
NVSS collects and disseminates the official vital statistics collected from the 50 states and 5 territories.
N Codes
Numerical designations of the nature of injury developed by the World Health Organization for its International Classification of Disease system.
Near-drowning
It is an immersion injury resulting in brain damage from oxygen deprivation.
Needs Assessment
The process of determining a community’s perceptions of its needs or quality of life, and its aspirations for the common good through broad participation and the application of multiple information-gathering activities designed to expand understanding of the community.
Objective
A statement of change sought in an injury problem in terms that are measurable, time limited, and specific to a given target population.
Outcome Evaluation
Assessment of the effects of a program on its ultimate objectives, including changes in health and social benefits or quality of life.
Outcome Objective
A statement of the desired impact of an intervention on injury morbidity and/or mortality, knowledge, attitudes, behavior, physical environments, or public policy and practice.
Planning
The process of defining needs, establishing priorities, diagnosing causes of problems, assessing resources and barriers, and allocating resources to achieve objectives.
Population
All the inhabitants of a given city, county, region, state, or country.
Policy
The set of objectives and rules guiding the activities of an organization or an administration, and providing authority for the allocation of resources.
Poison
Any substance that can cause an unintended symptom or consequence.
Predisposing Factor
Any characteristic of a person or population that motivates behavior prior to the occurrence of the behavior.
Prevalence
A measure of the extent of a disease or health problem in a population based on the number of cases (old and new) existing in the population at a given time.
Primary Prevention
Efforts to forestall or prevent events that may result in injuries.
Process Evaluation
The assessment of policies, materials, personnel, performance, quality of practice of services, and other inputs and implementation experiences.
Process Objective
A statement of the desired level of achievement of program activities.
Promising Practices
Promising practices are experimental approaches that are thought to have positive results.
Risk Factors
A characteristic that has been statistically demonstrated to be associated with (although not necessarily the direct cause of) a particular injury.
Secondary Prevention
Efforts to modify the consequences of potentially injury-producing events to prevent injury or reduce the severity of the injury.
Stakeholders
People who have an investment or a stake in the outcome of a program and therefore have reasons to be interested in the evaluation of a program.
State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association (STIPDA)
STIPDA is a national non-profit organization of professionals committed to strengthening the ability of state, territorial, and local health departments to reduce death and disability associated with injury and violence.
Surveillance
The ongoing and systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data in the process of describing and monitoring a health event.
Surveys
Methods of polling a group or population to estimate the norms and distribution of characteristics from a sample, using direct observations, questionnaires, or interviews.
Systems Approach
A comprehensive, systematic method to address injury problems through the combined, coordinated expertise of individuals and agencies knowledgeable about the magnitude of the problem, the nature of the community, and the resources available for prevention. A process that incorporates primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.
Tertiary Prevention
Acute medical care and rehabilitation directed at the return of a functioning patient to society.
Vector
The mechanism by which potentially injurious energy is transmitted to the host (e.g., a motor vehicle).
Violence
The use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that results in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development, or deprivation.
Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS)
WISQARS is an interactive database that provides injury-related data for both fatal and nonfatal injuries.
World Health Organization (WHO)
WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.
Years of Potential Life Lost
A statistical measure calculated by subtracting an individual's age at death from a predetermined life expectancy.
References
- ASTHO, www.astho.org, 2009.
- CDC, www.cdc.gov, 2009.
- Family of International Classifications: definition, scope, and purpose, World Health Organization, 2004.
- Health Promotion Planning, Third Edition. Lawrence W. Green and Marshall W. Kreuter, 1999.
- Injury Prevention and Public Health, Tom Christoffel and Susan Scavo Gallagher, 1999.
- Injury Prevention and Public Health, Tom Christoffel and Susan Scavo Gallagher, 2006.
- Injury Prevention: Meeting the Challenge, The National Committee for Injury Prevention and Control, 1989.
- Managed Care, Outcomes, and Quality: A Practical Guide, Steven Isenberg, 1998.
- NACCHO, www.naccho.org, 2009.
- National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals & Objectives for Action, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001.
- NFIRS, www.nfirs.fema.gov, 2009.
- NHTSA, www.nhtsa.dot.org, 2009.
- STIPDA, www.stipda.org, 2009.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Services and Resources Administration, D. Denboba, 1993.
- WHO, www.who.int, 2009.
