Governance and injury prevention

Abstract

Urban governance implies that state authorities and other actors (including private and social sectors) work together with authentic community participation as needed to meet the challenges to achieve urban health. In this context, addressing the problem of injury is critical. In urban space, injuries can occur for various external causes (falls, burns, even interpersonal violence, etc). This paper includes a discussion and analysis of governance mechanisms on urban areas, in terms of the implementation of the safe system approach which has been proposed as the best preventive strategy, to assure road safety, mostly at urban spaces, for injury prevention. The existence of governance mechanisms needs to be considered as a primary issue to be included on injury research to evaluate the implementation for preventive programmes on the injury field in general, especially those occurred at urban spaces.