Injury Registry

The contribution of injury to the burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries is increasing, yet prevention and management are not attracting the desired level of attention. An important factor contributing to this issue is the inadequacy of data available to generate actionable information to support advocacy and development of interventions. To combat this problem, the Injury Registry in Ghana was initiated and led by Dr. Frank Baiden. This initiative used a simple, standardized tool to systematically collect detailed information on the causes, precipitating factors, nature, severity, and clinical outcomes of all cases of injury reported at a district regional hospital. Data collection occurred between January 2012 to December 2014 and 7,148 injured patients were recruited. Recruitment took place at two facilities, selected to provide data from both semi-rural and urban settings, and the registry employed the use of both routine and non-routine health staff to identify cases and collect the required data.