Healthy Communities

Injury Prevention

Every day in the news, we hear about a car or ATV crash, a fall, a house fire, a drowning, an incident in a workplace, or a sports injury.  Though many people see them as unrelated incidents – they are all injuries.

Injury is the leading cause of preventable death for Nova Scotians under the age of 45, killing more people under 20 than all other causes of death combined.

Most injuries are predictable and preventable.  We all need to take steps to reduce injury by managing our personal risk and creating safer environments.

Nova Scotia was the first province in Canada to adopt a comprehensive injury prevention strategy in 2004.

In 2010, a renewed strategy was developed to bring injury prevention in the province to the next level. Nova Scotia’s Renewed Injury Prevention Strategy, Taking It to the Next Level continues to focus on three leading causes of injury in Nova Scotia:

• seniors’ falls,
• suicide and attempted suicide;
• and road safety.

It also focuses on populations most at risk of injury such as children, youth and seniors, and on specific settings including schools, workplaces and recreation settings.

• Injury is the leading cause of death for Nova Scotians aged 1 - 45.
• Annually, injury kills nearly 425 Nova Scotians, and hospitalizes more than 6,000 more.
• For youth under the age of 20, injury claims more lives each year than all other causes of death combined.
• Emergency departments in our province treat as many as 90,000 injuries per year.
• The leading causes of injury related deaths in Nova Scotia are suicide, motor vehicle crashes, and falls.
• The leading causes of injury-related hospitalizations are falls, motor vehicle crashes and attempted suicide.