Hospital records covering the period between 1986 and 1990 obtained fr
om 10 major city hospitals and 12 City Council Health clinics were rev
iewed and information on age, sex, occupation, type and cause of injur
y and its management was extracted, Also extracted was information on
outcome of treatment. This paper deals only with information related t
o persons aged 18 years and above, The results show that out of 9648 h
ospital records reviewed, 48% were adult cases, with a male to female
ratio of 1.5:1, Age group 18-35 years constituted more than 70% of all
the cases, declining markedly with increasing age, The slums and low
income group residential areas contributed 63% of the cases, The main
types of injuries attended to were open wounds (34%), burns (13%), swe
llings (7%), lacerations and bruises (6%), bites and Limb injuries (5%
), respectively. The results show that there is a clear case for a com
munity operational research project with a strong accident prevention
component.