Chronic Diseases and Injuries in Canada

Volume 31, no. 3, June 2011

Preface - What’s in a Name: Chronic Diseases and Injuries in Canada

As of this current issue, Chronic Diseases in Canada (CDIC) has been renamed Chronic Diseases and Injuries in Canada (CDIC).  Reporting on injuries (accidents, occupational injuries and intentional injuries, including suicide) has always been part of the journal’s implicit mandate, if not its name.  As the guest editor, Dr. A. J. Clayton, wrote in the inaugural issue, “We propose to include material based on research, surveillance and control aspects of non-communicable diseases or conditions such as cancer, heart disease and accidents.”  Since 1993, the mission statement on the inside cover of the journal has included mention of injuries as part of the journal’s focus. 

In fact, since its inception in June 1980, CDIC has published over 50 articles on injuries, as well as the proceedings of the International Conference on Air Bags and Seat Belts (October 18-20, 1992, Montreal, Quebec).  Two theme issues were devoted to the topic of injuries (Volume 11, Number 6, 1990 and Volume 15, Number 1, 1994).  CDIC was one of the first journals to publish a study based on data obtained from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP), which has a strong focus on paediatric injury surveillance.  More recently, CDIC has published papers on variations in injury among urban-rural geographic status (Jiang, 2007;28(1-2):56-62), seniors and falls (Leclerc, 2008;28(4):111-120), the link between deprivation and unintentional injury hospitalization (Gagné, 2009;29(2):56-69) and how to make injury data useful to policy makers (Mitton, 2009;29(2):70-9). 

In the current issue, we are pleased to feature a paper by DeGroot et al., “Patterns of fatal machine rollovers in Canadian agriculture” (p. 97). A paper by Campbell et al. entitled “Can we use medical examiners’ records for suicide surveillance and prevention research in Nova Scotia?” will be published in our September 2011 issue (Volume 31:4).

Changing the journal’s name to include the word “Injuries” in the title is more than just calling a spade a spade, however.  It reflects a shift in research priorities where experts will be needed to perform risk assessment as well as the usual surveillance.  This shift is reflected on a corporate level within the Public Health Agency of Canada, which is the organization that publishes CDIC. In this vein, the editors would be interested in seeing papers that support or challenge current platforms for chronic disease risk assessment and/or make novel use of available data sources to report on injury risk factors. We would also be interested in receiving manuscripts of structured reviews of population interventions meant to reduce injury risk in the Canadian population.

Howard Morrison, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Chronic Diseases and Injuries in Canada

Michelle Tracy, MA
Managing Editor, Chronic Diseases and Injuries in Canada