Major conference to discuss injury prevention

Media Release

Major conference to discuss injury prevention

Every day four people die from injury and about 3,800 are injured badly enough to seek medical help.

The task of trying to turn around these grim statistics will be under discussion at a conference on injury prevention in Wellington on October 29 to 31.

The conference is being organised by Injury Prevention Network of Aotearoa New Zealand, a group that was formed three years ago to bring together people working in injury prevention in many different agencies.

Network Chairperson Molly Pardoe says the social and economic costs of injury for New Zealand are huge and there are also personal and family costs.

“Injury is a significant contribution to premature death and disability, but in the past its importance to our well being has been overlooked. This conference is a chance to put the issues on centre stage.”

The conference will discuss issues such as suicide prevention, alcohol related harm, injuries to children and the elderly through falls, water safety and fire safety, as well as child abuse and dog bites.

Injury prevention issues and programmes for Maori and Pacifika are also a feature of the three day conference which aims to honour indigenous experience, celebrate innovative programmes and create quality results. Key note speakers include national and international injury prevention experts.

- Rod McClure is Chief Executive Officer and Research Director of Injury Prevention and Control in Australia and Associate Professor and Head of the Injury Research Unit in the School of Population Health. Over the past five years, Rod McClure has also played a role in the development of injury control in Australia, sitting on a number of national and state committees.

- Carolyn Coggan is the Director of the Injury Prevention Research Centre, School of Population Health, University of Auckland. She has extensive expertise in research related to both unintentional and intentional (suicide and violence) injury prevention. She is responsible for a programme of research to prevent or reduce the human and social costs of injuries.

- John Langley has been involved in injury prevention research since 1978. He is the Director of the Injury Prevention Research Unit in Dunedin. His research has covered a wide range of prevention issues including: childhood injury, motor vehicle traffic crashes, suicide, injury to Maori , injury surveillance, firearm injury, fireworks, assault, burns, drowning, and work-related injury. He is the co-ordinator of the IPRU’s programme of research on injury surveillance, which has as its focus studies aimed at developing better methods and tools for measuring performance.
Other speakers include Rose-Alma McDonald from United States, who will talk about her experiences in America and Canada as an advocate for the First Nation community. Dr McDonald has worked on a wide variety of projects over the years including policy development, education, employment and job training, health, Aboriginal persons with disabilities, injury prevention, economic and business development, recreation, social security reform, youth issues and aboriginal entrepreneurship

“The diversity of the conference programme underscores the multitude of topics that demand the passion and expertise of the injury prevention workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand,” says Molly Pardoe.

More than 250 people working in the injury prevention area are expected to attend the conference which is called Weaving the Strands. The conference will be held at Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand.

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