Development of a national injury prevention/safe community programme in Vietnam

The aim of this study is to describe the initiation of a national programme on injury prevention/safe community (IP/SC). Market economy, Doi Moi, was introduced in Vietnam in 1986 and since then the injury pattern has been re ported to have changed The number of traffic injury deaths has increased th ree-fold from 1980 to 1996 and traffic injuries more than four-fold. Injuri es are now the leading cause of mortality in hospitals There are difficulti es in obtaining a comprehensive picture of the injury pattern from official statistics and in conjunction with the work initiated by the Ministry of H ealth, a number of local reporting systems have already been developed. Rem arkable results have beer? achieved within the IP/SC in a very short time, based on 20 years of experience. An organizational construction system has been built from province to local community areas. Management is based on a dministrative and legislative documents IP/SC implementationis considered t he duty Of the whole community, local authorities and people committees, an d should be incorporated into local action plans The programme is a signifi cant contribution towards creating a safe environment in which everybody ma y live and work, allowing the stability for society to develop. Implementat ion of the programme in schools is a special characteristic. The programme will be developed in 800 schools with a large number of pupils (25% of the population). This model for safer schools is considerably concerned and is a good experience to disseminate. The recommendations are that more pilot m odels of IP/SC should be conducted in other localities and that the program me should be expanded to a national scale. Furthermore, co-operation betwee n sectors and mass organizations should be encouraged and professional skil ls of key SC members at all levels should be raised.