An eco-social roadmap for injury prevention and research

Explanations of disease causation call upon diverse theoretical resources in the social and biological sciences, thus epidemiological, medical, and social scientists have had an increased interest in the multi-dimensionality of causation theory in recent years. The overall objective of this presentation is fourfold: (1) to use contemporary scientific theories to identify and define the social and medical individual, micro, and macro factors that significantly contribute to injury, (2) to present a framework that relates various factors together; (3) to assess the degree to which the framework accurately represents the constructs of a functioning and operating reality; and (4) to use the framework to identify “gaps in knowledge” in the field of injury. A systematic review of three injury/trauma/emergency peer reviewed journals was conducted to identify factors of interest. Two focus groups of content experts were then conducted to determine the relevance of the factors to injury causation. Narrative data was analyzed with a grounded theory methodology. The resulting framework represents a nonspecific classification scheme for health care utilization due to injury. The utility of such a classification scheme will be to enable future researchers focused concentration on selected aspects of a system without losing the contextual perspective.