. Guidelines for essential trauma care. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2004.

The Essential Trauma Care (EsTC) Project addresses one of the important points in the spectrum of injury control activities, that of promoting inexpensive improvements in facility-based trauma care. Through this and through the WHO's accompanying guidelines for trauma care before admission to hospital, currently in development, we seek to assure a certain minimum level of care for virtually every injured person worldwide. The potential benefits for such improvements are evidenced by the gross disparities in outcome between low- and middle-income countries on one hand and high-income countries on the other. For example, one of the studies quoted later in this document shows that persons with life-threatening but salvageable injuries are six times more likely to die in a low-income setting (36% mortality) than in a high-income setting (6% mortality).