Medicine, conflict, and survival
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The first step in defining a public health problem is to describe its scope and nature. For most diseases, this involves details on the victims, morbidity and mortality, and the agent of the disease. ⋯ The next step should be to develop standardized firearm-markings that would aid in controlling the illicit trade in small arms and more detailed information on the relationship between type of firearm and injury. Physicians can do much to aid prevention of small arms injury by advocating this public health approach.
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IPPNW and Physicians for Social Responsibility, Finland organized an international conference on small arms and firearms injury in Helsinki from 28-30 September 2001, emphasizing the preventive medicine aspects of the issues discussed. This article describes the background to this conference and reports the work of IPPNW in following it up.