‘Ninety per cent of injury claims’ preventable

ACC wants Kiwis to take a moment to think before jumping off a waterfall or balancing on a dresser to kill a mosquito.

About 90 per cent of injury claims are preventable, ACC says.

Its new campaign ‘Preventable’ hopes to decrease the number of injuries and reduce their severity.

ACC accepted more than 2 million injury claims each year – more than 5000 a day – which came at an annual cost of $4 billion.

In Canterbury, ACC spent more than $557 million on 232,494 new claims last year.

ACC’s head of injury prevention, Isaac Carlson, said people could avoid most injuries by ‘‘taking a moment to think’’.

‘‘It is all about taking a moment to think about what you’re about to do, what could go wrong and taking action to make sure it turns out well. We want New Zealanders to enjoy their lives and have fun. We can all prevent most harm happening in the first place.’’

Research for the campaign identified four key attitudes to risk: opportunity, nurturer, excitement and attentive.

The ‘‘opportunity’’ profile

described people who embraced risk-taking and challenge, and considered mistakes.

The ‘‘nurturer’’ focused on getting the job done for others, not potential risks to themselves.

‘‘They often unwittingly put themselves in harm’s their role of helping Carlson said.

The ‘‘excitement’’ profile focused on thrill and living in the moment.

The ‘‘attentive’’ profile were people ‘‘hardwired to stay away from harm’’. They generally did the right thing but needed to be empowered to speak up when they saw others at risk.

ACC had an online quiz for people to identify their attitude to risk.

It would invest $7.6min the Preventable campaign over the next two years, as part of its overall $80m annual investment into injury prevention. way in others,’’