Inclusion of intentional injuries

The conference featured a lively debate and a straw poll on whether ISCAIP should include intentional injuries in its scope and mission. The debaters and attendees concluded that the answer to this question is overwhelmingly yes. While respecting the views of dissenters, most believe that ISCAIP should be concerned with injuries to children and adolescents regardless of how they occur, and that in fact determination of intent is often difficult, sometimes impossible, and occasionally irrelevant. In many situations, prevention may be the same regardless of the intent; safe storage of guns can prevent unintentional firearm injuries to young children as well as suicide by guns in adolescents. On the other hand, we realize that much of the field of violence is the bailiwick of criminology, not injury control, and that we should recognize the important contributions these individuals have …