Intentional Injuries

Posted on 15/10/2015
Injuries are not accidents – they can be prevented. Injuries are not random, uncontrollable
events, but rather predictable and preventable incidences with identifiable causes. Of the 3,178
injury deaths in Alabama in 2001, 70% were due to “unintentional” injury and 30% were due
to violence, or “intentional” injury. Injuries affect everyone.
Intentional injuries are something you do with the purpose of hurting yourself or others. These are
planned actions. Homicides and suicides are the top two intentional injuries in Alabama.

Examples of intentional injuries include the following:

 Child Maltreatment: includes child abuse and child neglect

"Any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver (e.g., clergy,
coach, and teacher) that result in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child."

"Acts of Commission (child abuse) include words or overt actions that cause harm, potential
harm, or threat of harm to a child that are deliberate and intentional. Harm to a child may or
may not be the intended consequence. Intentionality only applies to the caregivers' acts—not
the consequences of those acts. Examples of maltreatment involving acts of commission
include physical, sexual, and psychological abuse."

"Acts of Omission (child neglect) include the failure to provide for a child's basic physical,
emotional, or educational needs or to protect a child from harm or potential harm. Like acts of
commission, harm to a child may or may not be the intended consequence. Examples of
maltreatment involving acts of omission include physical neglect, emotional neglect,
medical/dental neglect, educational neglect, inadequate supervision, and exposure to violent
environments" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).

 Community Violence: includes neighborhood violence

Violence that occurs primarily outside of the home and involves individuals who may or may
not know each other, but who are unrelated. Some of the acts that fall under the community
violence umbrella include sexual assault, burglary, use of weapons, muggings, the sounds of
bullet shots, as well as social-disorder issues such as the presence of teen gangs, drugs, and
racial divisions. Additionally, community violence typically includes direct and indirect
victimization through experiencing violence, witnessing violence, or hearing about violence in
one's neighborhood.

 Elder Abuse: includes elder maltreatment and mistreatment

"Elder maltreatment includes any abuse and neglect of persons age 60 and older by a caregiver
or another person in a relationship involving an expectation of trust. Examples of elder
maltreatment include physical abuse, sexual abuse/abusive sexual contact, psychological or
emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment, financial abuse, or exploitation" (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 2011).

 Homicide

"Death due to the intentional assault of another person by any means:

 Intent to kill is not necessary for a homicide to occur

 Homicides, as well as all other forms of violence, are associated with intentional
behaviors"

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).

 Intimate Partner Violence: includes domestic violence

"Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) includes physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or
former partner or spouse. This type of violence can occur among heterosexual or same-sex
couples and does not require sexual intimacy. IPV can vary in frequency and severity. It occurs
on a continuum, ranging from one hit that may or may not impact the victim to chronic, severe
battering. The four main types of IPV include physical violence, sexual violence, threats of
physical or sexual violence, and psychological or emotional violence" (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 2011).

 School Violence

"School violence typically refers to student-on-student and student-on-teacher acts of physical

harm" (Stuart Henry, What Is School Violence? An Integrated Definition, ANNALS, AAPSS, 567,
January 2000).

 Sexual Violence

"Sexual violence (SV) includes any sexual act that is perpetrated against someone's will. SV
encompasses a range of offenses, including a completed nonconsensual sex act (i.e., rape), an
attempted nonconsensual sex act, abusive sexual contact (i.e., unwanted touching), and
noncontact sexual abuse (e.g., threatened sexual violence, exhibitionism, verbal sexual
harassment). All types involve victims who do not consent or who are unable to consent or
refuse to allow the act" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).
  Suicide

"Suicide is death caused by self-directed, injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result of
the behavior. Suicidal behavior exists along a continuum from thinking about ending one's life,
to developing a plan, to nonfatal suicidal behavior, to ending one's life. Suicidal ideation
includes thoughts of harming or killing oneself. The severity of suicidal ideation can be
determined by assessing the frequency, intensity, and duration of these thoughts. A suicide
attempt is a nonfatal, self-directed, potentially injurious behavior with any intent to die as a
result of the behavior. A suicide attempt may or may not result in injury" (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 2011).

 Youth Violence: includes bullying, peer harassment, and gang violence

Youth violence is typically defined as interpersonal violence in persons between the ages of 10
to 24, although patterns of youth violence can begin in early childhood. Interpersonal violence
is defined as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against
another person or against a group or community that results in or has a high likelihood of
resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation" (Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).

Unintentional Injury

Unintentional" is used to refer to injuries that were unplanned. Unintentional injuries can be
defined as events in which:

 The injury occurs in a short period of time - seconds or minutes,

 The harmful outcome was not sought, or
 The outcome was the result of one of the forms of physical energy in the environment
or normal body functions being blocked by external means, e.g., drowning.

The most common unintentional injuries result from motor vehicle crashes, falls, fires and
burns, drowning, poisonings and aspirations.

Home Safety

Safety issues in and around the home include:

 Falls
 Burns
 Electrical shock
 suffocation
 Drowning
  Scald Burns
 Playground-related injuries
 Unintentional Poisoning

Safety efforts include coordinating with various partners to conduct safety conferences,
developing, maintaining and distributing safety information on a variety of subjects upon
request to individuals and groups, providing technical assistance and guidance to local
coalitions as well as individuals interested in safety.

Safe Communities

Safe Communities Coalitions are groups of individuals and/or organizations working together in
a common effort for a common purpose to make more effective and efficient use of their
resources.

Characteristics of a safe community coalition include:

 Collaboration,
 Coordination,
 Cooperation,
 Networking, and
 Partnering.

Some key indicators of a working Safe Community coalition are:

 Shared Resources,
 Joint Planning,
 Common Goals,
 Shared Sense of Purpose, and
 Shared Responsibility of Outcomes.

Traffic safety:

 Child Passenger Safety

 Young Driver Safety