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​According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Unintentional and violence-related injuries, including suicide, were among the top 10 causes of U.S. deaths for all age groups and caused nearly 27 million nonfatal emergency department visits in 2019,” the most recent data available. The CDC estimated the yearly economic cost of injuries in the U.S. to be a staggering $4.2 trillion, inclusive of medical care, work loss, the value of statistical life and the quality-of-life loss costs.

It’s clear that traumatic injury takes an extraordinarily heavy toll across our society, following cancer and heart disease as the third most expensive category of medical treatment.

Yet, relative to the research support provided for other conditions, trauma remains considerably underfunded. Despite 50 years of reporting on the consequences of underfunding, Trauma remains a major public health problem without a consistent research funding mechanism such as a central, federally funded research institute to coordinate studies, reduce duplication, concentrate resources, and encourage collaboration.

Since 2006, in the absence of any such national coordinating entity, the Coalition for National Trauma Research (est. National Trauma Institute), has increasingly played those roles.