Injury is a worldwide epidemic, accounting for 9% of global mortality and 5 million deaths each year.1 The fields of public health, engineering and medicine have been the traditional and successful forerunners in injury prevention, but the race to prevent injury is far from complete. Despite collaborative efforts between traditional injury-related fields and other fields such as the social and behavioural sciences, injury rates continue to escalate in some parts of the world. In the August 2008 issue of Injury Prevention, Tran and Hyder2 alerted current researchers to the growing burden of injury, and highlighted the dire need for capacity building to tackle this problem.

As psychologists, in this essay we describe ways to stimulate interest in our colleagues to pursue injury-related research and practice. We hope this interest will complement current injury prevention efforts by offering a perspective that …