Importance of systematic reviews and meta-analyses for research and practice.

The systematic reviews of the literature reported in this issue of the Journal provide a number of important contributions to the field. First, they organize a large literature, culling out core contributions to the knowledge base for those new to the injury prevention field. Second, they provide concise information to policy makers and program planners on approaches to preventing injury that are most likely to lead to success. Third, they reveal key limitations of the extant literature, and point the way toward methodological improvements and changes needed in how research is reported. The members of the collaborative team that conducted these reviews selected ten interventions that target major causes of injuries, for which evaluation studies are available, and for which estimates of their overall effect across studies was deemed to make a useful contribution to the literature. The reader should not assume that there are no other interventions with scientifically established beneficial effects. There are numerous others. In the alcohol arena, for example, evidence is clear that numerous regulations reducing the availability of alcohol (such as raising the legal drinking age or increasing alcohol taxes) reduces drinking, reduces alcohol-related car crashes, and re