International comparison

The EU-IDB (European Injury Database) contains transnational data concerning the external causes and circumstances of injuries treated by hospital emergency departments.

The main purpose of this database is to facilitate the development and assessment of injury prevention policies and programmes aimed at controlling external risks. The data supplements the statistics on deaths and hospital discharges, as well as the purpose-designed systems for monitoring road traffic accidents and accidents at work. The information provided about the external circumstances surrounding injuries is uniquely rich, and absolutely necessary in order to base preventive actions on conclusive data. The data in the IDB is harvested by specialised agencies at national level and supplied to Italy's National Health Institute (Istituto Superiore di Sanità), which hosts the database. The data from Luxembourg's RETRACE register is used in this report for international comparisons.