Abstract
Background: Researchers have previously expressed concern about some national indicators of injury incidence and have argued that indicators should be validated before their introduction.
Aims: To develop a tool to assess the validity of indicators of injury incidence and to carry out initial testing of the tool to explore consistency on application.
Methods: Previously proposed criteria were shared for comment with members of the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics ( ICE) Injury Indicators Group over a period of six months. Immediately after, at a meeting of Injury ICE in Washington, DC in April 2001, revised criteria were agreed over two days of meetings. The criteria were applied, by three raters, to six non-fatal indicators that underpin the national road safety targets for Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Consistency of ratings were judged.
Consensus outcome: The development process resulted in a validation tool that comprised criteria relating to: ( 1) case definition, ( 2) a focus on serious injury, ( 3) unbiased case ascertainment, ( 4) source data for the indicator being representative of the target population, ( 5) availability of data to generate the indicator, and ( 6) the existence of a full written specification for the indicator. On application of these criteria to the six road safety indicators, some problems of agreement between raters were identified.
Conclusion: This paper has presented an early step in the development of a tool for validating injury indicators, as well as some directions that can be taken in its further development.