Prospective or retrospective: what's in a name?

SIR,-Dr John Ashton's editorial gives an excellent picture of the modern approach to public health.' His list of topics with which it is concernedhousing, sanitation, education, transport, etcillustrates the fields into which health now has an input. But it is also worth while to emphasise the other side of the coin and point out that the professions concerned-architecture, town planning, education, engineering, and agriculture -also have an important input into health. One exemplary multidisciplinary field that needs the cooperation of health professionals with many of these other professionals is accident prevention. This is, by a long way, the most important public health problem affecting children, adolescents, and young adults. It is therefore somewhat ironic that in the same issue of the BMJ there is a note on the establishment of a Trauma Foundation, whose resources will be devoted to research, postgraduate education, and providing hospital facilities for injured people.2 Regrettably, no mention is made of resources devoted to the prevention of such accidents. The irony is further heightened by the accompanying illustration of a cyclist who seems to have a head injury after being struck by a car-but no cycle helmet is in evidence. We urge that all such initiatives, in the spirit of the orientation described by Dr Ashton, recognise fully the proportions of the problem of injuries resulting from accidents, especially as it affects young people.