Background
death
Falls are a major public health problem leading to injury, disability, and death. The annual incidence of multiple or recurrent fallers in community-dwelling older adults ranges from 11% to 15% [Age alone is not a sufficient criterion for risk. Falls history, objective testing of strength, balance and reaction time, assessment of polypharmacy and vision testing have been incorporated into screening tools. The Falls Risk Assessment Tool [Impairments of activities of daily living (ADLs) have been associated with risk of falling but are rarely incorporated into screening tools. An American cohort study found that ADLs were predictive of both single and recurrent falls [More detailed approaches are costly and time-consuming for delivery in primary care and are impractical for screening at a population level. We used a short, postal screener to identify falls risk in a large cohort of older people recruited to a clinical trial, the UK Prevention of Falls Injury Trial (PreFIT; ISRCTN71002650) [