THE STOCKHOLM COUNTY PROGRAMS FOR ACCIDENT AND ALCOHOL PREVENTION ANDINJURY SURVEILLANCE - INITIAL EXPERIENCES

A comprehensive programme for accident prevention and injury surveilla nce was established in Stockholm County in 1988. Its main objective is to reduce the morbidity and mortality of unintentional injuries by 25 % by the year 2000, and by more than 25% in the high-incidence groups. An accident prevention unit has been assigned the task of planning an d implementing an accident prevention programme, while a programme for prevention of alcohol-related problems was set up later. An injury ep idemiological unit at the Karolinska Hospital is responsible for coord inating injury surveillance, which is an important contribution for mo nitoring and evaluation of the prevention programmes. On injured patie nts information about type of injury, extent of injury, place, activit y, injury mechanism, external cause of injury, treatment and other ite ms is entered on a special registration form. In (10%) of 11 327 injur y events alcohol was considered by the physician to be a main or contr ibutory cause of the injury, with a predominance among males. An act o f violence was approximately three times as common among males and fiv e times as common among females with alcohol involvement than among ca ses without alcohol involvement. The injury surveillance can be an imp ortant means for evaluation of programmes for prevention of injuries a nd alcohol-related events.