title: Validating and Improving Injury Burden Estimates Study: the Injury-VIBES study protocol.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Priority setting, identification of unmet and changing healthcare needs, service and policy planning, and the capacity to evaluate the impact of health interventions requires valid and reliable methods for quantifying disease and injury burden. The methodology developed for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) studies has been adopted to estimate the burden of disease in national, regional and global projects. However, there has been little validation of the methods for estimating injury burden using empirical data.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To provide valid estimates of the burden of non-fatal injury using empirical data.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data from prospective cohort studies of injury outcomes undertaken in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and The Netherlands.
  
  
  METHODS
  Meta-analysis of deidentified, patient-level data from over 40 000 injured participants in six prospective cohort studies: Victorian State Trauma Registry, Victorian Orthopaedic Trauma Outcomes Registry, UK Burden of Injury study, Prospective Outcomes of Injury study, National Study on Costs and Outcomes of Trauma and the Dutch Injury Patient Survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data will be systematically analysed to evaluate and refine injury classification, development of disability weights, establishing the duration of disability and handling of cases with more than one injury in burden estimates. Developed methods will be applied to incidence data to compare and contrast various methods for estimating non-fatal injury burden.
  The findings of this international collaboration have the capacity to drive how injury burden is measured for future GBD estimates and for individual country or region-specific studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Belinda J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Gabbe
authors.affiliation: Centre for Improvement of Population Health through E-records Research, Swansea University, Swansea, UK.
authors.forename: Ronan A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Lyons
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Injury Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.affiliation: Departments of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: Frederick P
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Rivara
authors.affiliation: Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Shanthi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ameratunga
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Damien
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jolley
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Polinder
authors.affiliation: Injury Prevention Research Unit, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Derrett
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D011050:Policy Making; D011446:Prospective Studies; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000191:economics* / Q000517:prevention & control; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic