Injury surveillance in Portugal

• Author(s): Contreiras, Teresa
• Date: 2012
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/1509
• Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Nacional de Saúde
• Subject(s): Injury Surveillance; ADELIA; Vigilância de Acidentes; Estados de Saúde e de Doença; Cuidados de Saúde
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

In Portugal, the National Health Service (NHS) is responsible for providing health care to its ten and a half million inhabitants. Health service planning and regulation take largely place at the central level in the Ministry of Health (MoH) and its institutions, through its National Health Plan. The management of the NHS is devolved to the 5 health regions, Norte, Centro, Lisboa e Vale do Tejo, Alentejo and Algarve, and to the 2 autonomous regions, Açores and Madeira. Primary care centres (377 at present) are the main pillar of the health system. The health administration board of each of these regions is accountable to the MoH and is responsible for strategic management of population health, supervision and control of hospitals, management of primary care/NHS primary care centres, and implementation of national health policies taking into account regional needs. The NHS operates the 77 hospitals that have an Emergency Department (ED). Injury awareness by both the public and health care providers has been reinforced by the adoption of the National Programme of Prevention of Injuries 2009-2016. This programme aims to reduce injuries and their impact on the population in general and especially on vulnerable groups as well as to ensure equitable access of injured persons to health care. It also highlights the need to collect, analyse and disseminate information on unintentional injuries through an integrated system of information. Results from the last Census in 2011 indicate that 15% of the population in Portugal belongs to the age group 0-14 years and about19% is 65 years or over, while in 2001these proportions were 16% and 16,5% respectively. This trend is expected to continue and certainly will have an impact on the annual number of injuries.