What is community-centered injury surveillance?

Injury surveillance is a process that collects information about injury events or accidents. It is an ‘information gathering system’ that helps to identify:

         WHO is getting injured

         WHEN injuries are happening

         WHERE injuries are taking place

         WHAT factors are contributing to injury events  and

         HOW and WHY injuries are happening

Community-centered injury surveillance simply means the information is intended for the benefit and well-being of your community. Information about your community is gathered by your community for your community to use.

What are the key benefits of injury surveillance?

Injury surveillance can help your community take action on injuries by helping you to identify and understand injuries impacting your community. This knowledge and understanding can then be used to guide your injury prevention activities.

Several specific benefits are being able:

         to look at injury problems in an objective way

         to identify your community’s injury priorities

         to monitor and evaluate your prevention efforts

         to prepare funding proposals based on community-specific facts and figures

What is the Aboriginal Community-Centered Injury Surveillance System (ACCISS) and why was it developed?

Over a decade ago, reserve-based First Nations and Inuit communities identified a need to have injury data specific to their community’s population.  At that time most First Nations and Inuit communities had little or no injury data that could be considered relevant, accurate or timely. In response to this need (ACCISS) was developed to meet the specific needs of Aboriginal communities.