Costs of Injury

The Department of Labour is leading an inter-agency project to improve information on the costs of injury in New Zealand.

Costs of injury include hospital treatment, emergency transport, medication, property modifications, home help, loss of income, and pain and suffering.
Currently we only have some information on these costs, so we cannot estimate the full cost of injuries to society, organisations, and individuals in New Zealand. We need better information so we can minimise the total costs of injury in New Zealand.

The costs of injury project will develop and maintain the most comprehensive and integrated injury costs information over the next 5 - 10 years.

Measuring the costs of injury is integral to making proper decisions about preventing and managing the effect of injuries in New Zealand.

However, measurement is complex because it depends on what is being measured and is confounded by the specific outcomes that different government agencies are trying to achieve. While consistent decision making across agencies is desirable, ensuring that those decisions are based on consistent information is paramount.

A recent report "Measuring the costs of Injury in New Zealand" sets out a basic framework to navigate through this complexity and identify the state of current information to support consistent measurement of costs of injury.

The report finds that current information is scattered and incomplete, but that a sound information base exists which could be built on to produce a range of key injury cost statistics to support decision making across different agencies.

Further work is identified in the report. In some cases this work is substantial. Relative priorities and funding opportunities would first need to be identified before any investment could take place.