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from the if-you-think-healthcare-is-expensive,-try-going-without-it dept.
A new analysis by researchers from Brown University and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation has found that nonfatal injuries in the U.S. in the year 2013 cost more than $1.8 trillion.
And nearly all injures are preventable, said Dr. Mark Zonfrillo, an associate professor at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School and a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Hasbro Children's Hospital.
The study, led by Zonfrillo, found that in 2013 about one in 10 individuals in the U.S. was treated for an injury at a hospital, resulting in an annual cost of $1.853 trillion. The findings were published on Monday, Oct. 8, in the journal Injury Epidemiology.
Annual price tag for non-fatal injuries in the US tops $1.8 trillion
[Also Covered By]: EurekAlert
(Score: 2) by splodus on Monday October 08 2018, @09:47PM
I'm old enough to remember when seat belts were made compulsory in the UK.
Most people did not wear seatbelts at the time, even when they had them in their cars. When the new law was being discussed, there was a lot of opposition to it - lots of people objected to it on principle, a few claimed that seatbelts could actually be dangerous...
The law passed, and seatbelts have saved lives ever since. I don't know why people would not wear their seatbelts until they were threatened with a punishment if they did not?
I guess we weigh the perceived risk against the immediate inconvenience? I wouldn't climb on a roof without a safety harness, cos I don't do that often and it's bloody scary every time I do! But I drive every day without incident; it's easy to disregard what would happen if I crashed the car...
We do need laws to protect us from ourselves - or more to the point, to protect us from the faults in our brains that give us an inadequate grasp of risk and consequences.