Injuries Are Costly
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Suicide Prevention |
Falls Prevention |
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| Alcohol | Gambling | Cannabis | Tobacco | Violence |
Welcome to Injury Free Nova Scotia
We love Nova Scotia. We love our vibrance, our diversity, our landscape, our people, and our weather (most of the time). We love our history of pulling together to face challenging times, and our ability to see beyond simply our own needs to those of others. We celebrate the successes of our neighbours, our coworkers, our teammates, as well as our own. We live in communities from urban and rural to something in-between, and while we pursue unique life paths we are united in wanting health and happiness for ourselves, our families and friends, our communities, our province, our country and our planet.
We exist as an organization because serious injuries and injury-related deaths in Nova Scotia rob us, our families, our communities and our province of joy and peace, and replace it with grief and loss.
Knowing that injury-related deaths remain the leading cause of death for Nova Scotians under the age of 45, and that they are largely preventable, we are motivated to be part of the collaborative movement to prevent them.
“In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over what’s about to happen. When you feel helpless, you’re far more afraid than you would be if you knew the facts.”
― An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
Fortunately for us, we know through evidence-based injury prevention how to control many of the variables that result in serious injury and injury-related deaths. Together we can pursue them, lessen injury severity and save lives.
"We need community action and policies to support healthy communities."
- Mark Hyman
Who We Are
Injury Free Nova Scotia is a provincial association, within the social impact sector, committed to eliminating serious and preventable injuries in Nova Scotia. We are registered as a non-profit. We know that most incidents referred to as "accidents" that injure, disable and claim the lives of our loved ones are in fact very preventable. We also know that to address the growing health care costs within our health care system we need to invest in prevention as well as in treatment. Doing this work well requires working respectfully together with diverse groups within the realm of health and beyond. We see our role as that of a positive change agent, - helping to build healthy public policy that will lessen injuries and disability, and save lives. We also see a role in bringing people together to inform, engage and mobilize them towards positive change. We exist as an organization because serious injuries and injury-related deaths in Nova Scotia rob us, our families, our communities and our province of joy and peace, and replace it with grief and loss.
Knowing that injury-related deaths remain the leading cause of death for Nova Scotians under the age of 45, and that they are largely preventable, we are motivated to be part of the collaborative movement to prevent them.
“In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over what’s about to happen. When you feel helpless, you’re far more afraid than you would be if you knew the facts.”
― An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
Fortunately for us, we know through evidence-based injury prevention how to control many of the variables that result in serious injury and injury-related deaths. Together we can pursue them, lessen injury severity and save lives.
"We need community action and policies to support healthy communities."
- Mark Hyman
Who We Are
How do we do this?We engage partners focused on injury prevention from diverse sectors - health care, transportation, justice, community services ...and beyond, to share and discuss current and credible evidence on issues of injury in the province. We discuss current injury trends and causes and the implications for effective prevention. We then work with diverse stakeholder groups to incorporate community-level experience of the issue, assess current policies and determine policy changes that evidence indicates will impact most positively on injury levels. Through then informing and engaging Nova Scotians to advocate with us for these policy changes, we work in partnership provincially to help create a safer province in which to work, play and explore.
Injury Free Nova Scotia appreciates being a part of a broader provincial health promotion network, reflecting injury prevention's important role in promoting overall good health for all Nova Scotians.
UPDATES:
CANNABIS IS LEGAL...NOW WHAT?
Our focus with the recent legalization of cannabis remains to support the safeguards that will protect our children and youth.
Please click on this website's "cannabis" tab to find out more about our organization's position and read some of the credible evidence that supports it.
If you want to know more about our organization and the work that we do, contact Shirley Burdock CLICK HERE
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Did You Know?
We often say it is not that we are drinking in our communities but how we are drinking that is the issue. When risky consumption patterns and attitudes towards alcohol are adopted by a community as a whole, the harms escalate, - and we all suffer.