Research on injury prevention: topics for systematic review

Background: Duplication should be avoided in research and only effective intervention programs should be implemented. Objective: To arrive at a consensus among injury control investigators and practitioners on the most important research questions for systematic review in the area of injury prevention. Design: Delphi survey. Methods: A total of 34 injury prevention experts were asked to submit questions for systematic review. These were then collated; experts then ranked these on importance and availability of research. Results: Twenty one experts generated 79 questions. The prevention areas with the most number of questions generated were fires and burns, motor vehicle, and violence (other than intimate partner), and the least were other interventions (which included Safe Communities), and risk compensation. These were ranked by mean score. There was good agreement between the mean score and the proportion of experts rating questions as important or very important. Nine of the top 24 questions were rated as having some to a substantial amount of research available, and 15 as having little research available. Conclusions: The Delphi technique provided a useful means to develop consensus on injury prevention research needs and questions for systematic review.