NIHR Global Health Research Group on Global Injury

Injuries are the leading cause of death in people aged 10-49 years. More people die from injuries than from HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. For every person who dies, up to 50 people survive but become disabled. Broken bones account for most of these injuries, and these happen more often to people living in poor regions, including some countries in Africa. Across Africa, little is known about how many people break a bone, what healthcare services are available to treat them, how a broken bone affects patients/families, and how to improve recovery. Our project has four parts: (1) RESEARCH TRAINING AND RESOURCES: Doctors, nurses and healthcare workers involved in the care of patients with broken bones have limited training in how to conduct research, and have poor access to the resources to do research. This makes it more difficult to improve the care for their patients. We will look at the current levels of research training and organization. We will design educational resources to fill gaps in the current understanding and ability to do research. (2) COUNTING BROKEN BONES: We will create a network of hospitals in our partner countries to study how often different types of broken bones occur. We will describe the resources (people and equipment) available to treat these injuries and how patients use these services. We collect this information for five broken bones that the World Health Organization (WHO) have identified to cause the most disability. (3) UNDERSTANDING RECOVERY: We will find out how patients in our partner countries recover from their broken bones, and how this impacts on their livelihoods and those who care for them. (4) STUDY FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: We want to understand how to do large-scale research for patients with broken bones throughout Africa. To do this we will run a small study in our network of hospitals to see what works well and what is challenging. This project will help us understand the number of broken bones that happen in Africa and what treatments are available to patients. It will develop research teams and guide us for future research studies. This works towards our vision that the care for broken bones in poor countries can be safe, accessible, and appropriate to the resources of local health systems. Community engagement and involvement: We have engaged with local patients and healthcare workers, whose opinions have informed our work so far. We will continue to integrate patients and community leaders to co-produce our research. Dissemination: Patients, clinicians and methodologists will co-develop publications, social media, and events. We will work alongside policy makers in national government ministries and strengthen our relationship with leaders within the WHO to ensure that we disseminate our findings effectively and influence policy to drive improved patient care.