The
Guidelines for essential trauma care seek to reduce such disparities by establishing achievable and affordable standards for injury care worldwide. They set forth a list of essential trauma services that the authors feel are achievable in virtually every setting worldwide. The guidelines then lay out the various human and physical resources that are needed to assure such services. These guidelines have been developed in a collaborative fashion with our (WHO) main partner in this endeavour, the International Association for the Surgery of Trauma and Surgical Intensive Care (IATSIC). They have also been developed with the input of several other international and national societies, and, most importantly,