Sizing Up Blast Injury Research - Transforming the Effectiveness and Relevance of Blast Injury Research

This report details our vision and research agenda to transform blast injury research to address humanitarian civilian health issues caused by landmines, explosive remnants of war (ERW) and conflict.

Blast injury research is an accelerating field, receiving increased interest and considerable funding in recent years. Contemporary blast injury research predominantly aims to improve prevention, protection and treatment of military personnel in defence contexts, despite the vast majority of causalities occurring within civilian populations. Furthermore, humanitarian efforts relating to landmines and ERW have focused on monitoring and demining technologies, with limited research to address or review blast injury victim support and assistance. As a result, there has been limited effort to examine or address the humanitarian health issues pertaining to civilian blast injuries.

Investment into blast injury research, and appropriate methodologies, should address relevant, priority injury types to deliver the greatest overall positive impact. There is currently no global database of historic and current research into blast injuries. Blast injury research requires a trans-disciplinary approach but typically remains a clinically-driven field. Many studies report incomplete blast parameters with limited transparency on the blast loading conditions considered or assumed, making it challenging to compare or relate them to real-world blast threats, injury scenarios and the populations concerned. Therefore, despite considerable investment, the current evidence-base to inform research strategies, methodologies, funding decisions and health policy is insufficient and out-of-date. This makes it challenging to assess the clinical and public health impact of blast injury studies, the effectiveness and fairness of funding and how health systems, clinicians and protection engineers can sustainably absorb findings to direct new priority research areas and improve health outcomes.

Our vision is to improve the impact, effectiveness, fairness and relevance of blast injury research to address the humanitarian civilian health issues caused by landmines, ERW and conflict. We will bring together expertise in blast engineering, public health, research investments analysis and clinical informatics to undertake novel research-on-research to establish an evidence-base that future blast injury research methodologies and investment reflects priority areas that best translate into improved health outcomes and population health.