Abstract

Injury prevention practitioners and experts, policy makers and health professionals seek information on what works and what doesn't work for the prevention of injuries. There is a need to build capacity among those working in injury prevention by providing relevant and accessible information on current knowledge about the effectiveness of preventive measures to enhance decision making and design of interventions in injury prevention. To provide this information to a wide variety of users the Dutch Consumer Safety Institute, in partnership with EuroSafe, developed a database on Effective Measures in Injury Prevention (EMIP). EMIP is an attempt to make it easier to assess the level of evidence available for a particular measure or strategy. By browsing the database, users have access to statements that provide evidence on prevention measures in injury prevention (eg, legislation, education), background documents upon which these evidence statements are based. The scope of EMIP is all injuries and all ages. Information in the database is primarily based on existing reviews with a focus on systematic reviews. If quality reviews are not available, other literature including original articles have been reviewed. Evidence statements are developed and reviewed by experts from the appropriate area of the injury field prior to being added to the database. The topics covered within EMIP include child safety, sport safety, vulnerable road users and safety for seniors. Topics related to intentional injuries are not yet included within EMIP. The EMIP database is available via the EuroSafe website: http://www.eurosafe.eu.com/csi/eurosafe2006.nsf/wwwVwContent/l2effectivemeasures.htm