16 August 2012 / Soweto, South Africa -- In collaboration with the University of South Africa (UNISA), WHO trained sixteen participants from Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda on injuries and violence data collection. Injuries and violence are major problems affecting the health and welfare of vulnerable populations. In the African region in 2004 injuries were responsible for close to 769000 deaths, with millions more injured or disabled.

However, the absence of accurate data in some countries of the region makes it difficult for the respective countries to make evidence-based policy and planning decisions, to monitor trends as well as monitoring and evaluation of interventions and prevention programmes. One of the main reasons for this is the very limited number of competent professionals in data collection, hence the WHO data collection training in Soweto, South Africa.

On completion of the training, WHO expected the participants:

To have understood the role of data in injury prevention and control
To have understood the steps in establishing a data collection system
To have understood the different data elements required for various types of injury
To have acquired knowledge on how to translate the data into information useful for prevention of injuries and violence
The participants expressed satisfaction with the content of the course and indicated that it was going to improve the quality of their work and requested WHO to organize more of such training courses.

WHO thanks the Government of the Republic of South Africa, particularly the Institute of Social and Health Sciences of the University of South Africa (UNISA) which is the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Intentional Injury and Violence Prevention for hosting the important workshop. This is a good sign of collaboration and the Country Office hopes that this collaboration will grow even stronger.

Six Countries Complete Injuries and Violence Data Collection Training