A model for balancing injury prevention and obesity prevention

Introduction: With rising rates of obesity, health promotion programs are encouraging people to become more physically active - in particular to walk and bike more. Fear of losing recent gains in the fight against pedestrian and pedalcycle injuries has caused injury prevention specialists to look closer at communities and their physical and behavioral environments. This project was to assess environmental hazards in order to prevent activity-related injuries such as falls and pedestrian injuries that may result from health promotion activities that encourage physical activity, in other words to promote safe and physically active communities.

Method: Use GIS as an analytical resource to assist health promotion and injury prevention specialists, community planners, and policy makers in integrating various environmental and health data. Maps contained information such as injury outcomes, physical activity behavior data, and transportation data such as routes to and destinations active children and adults frequent (parks, malls).

Results: A GIS model was implemented to assess unintentional injury rates and related factors, to help health educators and others address unintentional injuries (i.e. falls, pedestrian traffic). Environmental scan to monitor and provide feedback to allow injury prevention efforts to be incorporated in to programs to encourage physical activity. Various factors, from human and sociocultural to environmental and engineering factors were evaluated.

Conclusion: While encouraging physical activity is vital in improving health, it must not be made at the expense of injuries. Integration of injury surveillance and analysis of physical environments can help maintain safe environments while encouraging healthy behaviors.