Citation

Keller BA, Skubic J, Betancourt-Garcia M, Ignacio RC, Radowsky JS, Tyroch AH, Lascano CP, Joseph B, Stewart C, Moore FO, Costantini TW, Rizzo JA, Paul JS, Galindo RM, Silva A, Coimbra R, Berndtson AE. J. Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/TA.0000000000003920

PMID

36872517

Abstract

The United States-Mexico border is the busiest land crossing in the world and faces continuously increasing numbers of undocumented border crossers. Significant barriers to crossing are present in many regions of the border, including walls, bridges, rivers, canals, and the desert, each with unique features that can cause traumatic injury. The number of patients injured attempting to cross the border is also increasing, but significant knowledge gaps regarding these injuries and their impacts remain. The purpose of this scoping literature review is to describe the current state of trauma related to the US-Mexico border to draw attention to the problem, identify knowledge gaps in the existing literature, and introduce the creation of a consortium made up of representatives from border trauma centers in the Southwestern United States, the Border Region Doing Research on Trauma (BRDR-T) Consortium. Consortium members will collaborate to produce multicenter, up-to-date data on the medical impact of the US-Mexico border, helping to elucidate the true magnitude of the problem and shed light on the impact cross-border trauma has on migrants, their families, and the United States healthcare system. Only once the problem is fully described can meaningful solutions be provided.

Language: en