A new report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy finds injuries to professional athletes from routine play or practice are often characterized as “freak accidents” in the media, and fewer than one in ten news stories on injury events framed as ‘freak accidents’ include a prevention message. It is the first published study examining how the phrase is used in media, and is published in the current issue of Injury Prevention. Given that the news media shape public understanding of health issues, the study authors sought to understand how the US media use the expression ‘freak accident’ in relation to injury events. Three US news sources (Associated Press, New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer) were chosen to serve as a proxy for the wider news media. The search yielded a dataset of 250 stories incorporating the term ‘freak accident’ over a five-year period (2005-9), with injuries sustained by professional athletes dominating coverage (61%). Despite being called “freak accidents,” the injuries occurred most frequently during competition (40%) and practice (34%). “Framing sporting injuries that occur from routine play as ‘freak accidents’ might be an attempt to cover-up the dangerous risk-taking inherent to many sports,” explained lead study author Katherine C. Smith, PhD, an associate professor with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. Smith and colleagues also examined whether stories included information on how the event could have been prevented. Stories in which the injured person was a professional athlete were less likely than stories about any other injured party to include any prevention content, and stories in which the journalist employed the expression were significantly less likely to include any prevention content versus those in which the expression was used by a quoted stakeholder. “Journalists who frame injury events as freak accidents may be an appropriate focus for public health advocacy efforts,” said Smith. “Effective prevention messages should be developed and disseminated to accompany injury reporting in order to educate and protect the public.” Susan P. Baker, professor and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, along with Dr. Guohua Li, alumni of the Center and professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, have published the most comprehensive reference book to date on the methods and approaches underpinning the scientific discipline of injury control and prevention. Baker and Dr. Li brought together a team of global experts from public health, medicine, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences to write about the latest advances in theories and methods for understanding the causes, mechanisms, and outcomes of injury as well as the strategies to prevent injuries. The 36 chapters are written by some of the most accomplished researchers in the world, including several Center faculty: Dr. Shannon Frattaroli (Qualitative Methods), Dr. Renan Castillo (Functional Outcomes), Dr. David Bishai (Injury Costing Frameworks), and Dr. Andrea Gielen and Eileen McDonald (Behavioral Approach). Called a milestone and a “bedrock text” for researchers by the publisher, Springer, this is an essential reference book for anyone interested in violence prevention, emergency medical services, trauma care, risk assessment, crash investigation and litigation, and vehicle, occupational, recreational, and home safety. The book allows the reader to appreciate how far the field of injury research has come since its beginning, as reflected by the following:
• Injury is no longer considered a result of bad luck; it is not simply an “act of god”.
• Injury is predictable, preventable, and treatable, and even in a crash, fall, or shooting, there are effective interventions to lessen the risk, severity, and outcome of an injury.
• Injury is now widely recognized as a health problem, and in the field of public health and medicine, the word accident is avoided by mentioning the crash, poisoning, fall, or other injury-producing event.
• Injury is the subject of rigorous inquiries and interventions from multiple disciplines.
The kindle version of the book is online at Injury Research. More research and programs are needed to address the elevated rate of motor vehicle-related deaths among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. To better understand this racial and ethnic disparity, the authors conducted a systematic review of literature published over the past twenty years and found just seven studies describing the problem, and only seven that tested interventions. Despite overall declines in motor vehicle deaths in the U.S., deaths are highest among American Indian and Alaska Natives, with a motor vehicle death rate that is three times the rate for the Asian and Pacific Islander population—the population with the lowest rate. “The small number of studies in the peer-reviewed literature is surprising given the enormous human and economic impact of motor vehicle-related deaths in this population,” said lead study author Keshia Pollack, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. “If injury disparities are going to be eliminated, support for research and programs targeting those groups disproportionately impacted needs to be made more readily available.” To access the study press release, please click here. The study is published in the January issue of Epidemiologic Reviews, which is focused on injury. The special issue was edited by Susan Baker, the founding director and professor with the Injury Center, and Dr. Guohua Li, an alumnus of the Center who is a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
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