Developing the Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Thesaurus, International English Edition: An interdisciplinary tool for indexing and searching for research literature. Progress report 1

Lawrence, David Williams; Guard, Anara S.; Meier, A.; Laflamme, Lucie

doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2005.10.006

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Developing the Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Thesaurus, International English Edition: An interdisciplinary tool for indexing and searching for research literature. Progress report 1
Citation	Lawrence DW, Guard AS, Meier A, Laflamme L. Safety Sci. 2006; 44(4): 279-296.
Affiliation	Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, USA; , Education Development Center, Newton, MA, USA; Centre for Automotive Safety Research, Univ of Adelaide, Australia; Div Social Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Copyright	(Copyright © 2006, Elsevier Publishing)
DOI	10.1016/j.ssci.2005.10.006
PMID	unavailable
Abstract	Introduction: Research relevant to injury prevention and safety promotion (IPSP) is conducted within more than 30 disciplines. A thesaurus under development identifies and clarifies important IPSP concepts from these disciplines and standardizes their corresponding terms. The primary function of the IPSP thesaurus will be as an indexing and search tool so that users can conduct online searches with satisfactory completeness but with a minimum amount of irrelevant material. Without this cross-disciplinary thesaurus, researchers may miss relevant information in parallel or disparate fields, which in turn may lead them to recreate information already developed or to miss important connections that could advance each discipline. Methods: The five-year development process involves (1) gathering candidate concepts and their terms by examining existing thesauri and glossaries, reviewing the archives of 30 professional journals, and analyzing search terms used by visitors to the SafetyLit website; (2) compiling the terms for IPSP-related concepts into a list with a categorical hierarchy; (3) convening panels of experts to advise the process and (4) publishing the final print and electronic versions of the thesaurus. Progress: This paper describes the overall project and its progress so far. We are currently working on compiling the structured list. To date, more than 8800 IPSP-related terms have been selected for inclusion. These terms are being defined and placed into a suitable taxonomic hierarchy created for this project. The paper also calls for additional expert panel member volunteers to provide their input.