Alaska's statewide trauma registry: a useful surveillance tool for injury prevention planning and evaluation.

The state of Alaska is unique because it is one of a small number of states with a surveillance system that collects trauma information from every hospital in the state. The Alaska Trauma Registry (ATR) collects up to 144 data elements for every injured patient. Information from the ATR is useful as an injury surveillance tool for federal, state, and local governments and other agencies and organizations when planning and evaluating injury prevention programs. Combining trauma registry data with Bureau of Vital Statistics cause of death data provides complete, statewide, population-based data on all injuries serious enough to result in death or hospitalization.