Q. I need to keep up-to-date with the latest academic research in the area of public health and safety. Do you know of any good web-based services?

A. There is an excellent weekly web-based alerting service called SafetyLit: Injury prevention literature update run by David Lawrence of San Diego University in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Established for nine years, the SafetyLit update provides abstracts of English language articles from researchers in 35 disciplines in the area of unintentional injuries and violence. Summaries are drawn from anthropology, education, ergonomics, medicine, public health, public safety, traffic safety and many other fields. The service is available via email alert and on the web, and is free of charge. There are more than 18,000 subscribers in 176 countries. As well as the weekly alert there is a SafetyLit archive which has the complete backfiles of many key journals from the injury prevention and safety promotion field.

For anyone with more than a passing interest in all areas of injury prevention, the SafetyLit service is an invaluable resource. For further details on the service and how to subscribe, take a look at: : http://www.safetylit.org/.

The latest SafetyLit update is available from today, 28th January. Please click on the following link to view the Pdf: http://www.safetylit.org/week/2008/080128.pdf

RoSPA’s Information Centre can also help you to keep up with the latest developments in safety research. Tailored literature searches may be requested online via the RoSPA members’ website or by telephoning the Infocentre on 0121 248 2064. Literature searches, which include the full abstract and bibliographic details of relevant journal articles, are free to all enquirers. To receive articles in full-text you may incur a charge to cover photocopying and copyright fees, depending on whether or not you are a RoSPA member.