Here is a useful reminder that thought and ingenuity may be more important than large-scale studies for certain

purposes. The author of this paper discusses how data on accident occurrence in a communitv may be obtained so that necessary control activities may be developed. For this purpose a special accident morbidity survey is not always necessary.

BETTER MEASURES OF THE IMPACT OF ACCIDENTS ON THE COMMUNITY

Ch,,,lt'. ti. Cantrron. b., M.0- M.P.H.. F AVILA.

HE PAST FIVE YEARS have seen 3 T num- ber of state and local health departments initiate a variety of different program activities with the objective of controlling deaths, injuries, and disabilities resulting from home and farm accidents. These attempts to mobilize within the ranks of official health agencies a potent community force to make home living healthier and safer have caused several noteworthy problems.' These problems have delayed the effective organization of state and local accident control programs in some instances, and. unfortunately, may have completely discouraged the less determined. In many respects the problems associated with the development of safety activities as part of the over-all program of activities of the health department have been no different from those which have been faced in developing other new program areas ti public health.
JUNE. 1959 771

program activities. Modern public health practice now demands this careful documentation of the parameters of any health problem. and undoubtedl y much of the success of the public health movement in the world can he related to careful epidemiological survey' of various problems so that control activities could be pin-

The shortages of trained persnmel. the difficulties in adding new functions to staffs already saturated with activities and functions, the reluctance with which appropriating bodies have established new budget items to support accidentcontrol, and the equally puzzling questions of "what to do first, where, and how" can all be cited from the experience of one or more health departments considering accident control activities.

Perhaps basic to and underlying all these problems. however, have been the fundamental deficiencies faced by both state and local health jurisdictions in being able to document the scope and extent of their own particular accident problems. It is not so strange that the quest for data about the extent of the Community's accident problem has been one of the first difficulties encountered by public health program planners. for most basic primers in public health administration carefully admonish the administrator to determine the extent and character of the problem under consideration before planning