Abstract: Objective To investigate the status of injury and the cause of common injuries in the residents of Shanghai and to estimate its socio-economic loss and extent of harmfulness for injury prevention.Methods Aretrospective study on injury in 6593 residents of six urban communities and ten rural villages was conducted with multi-stage stratified cluster sampling.Results Incidence rate of injury was 3.96% and the rate was higher in the rural than in the urban areas.The top three causes of injuries were falls,wrench and traffic injury.The incidence increased significantly with age with a peak at ages of ≥60 years.Falls and collision occurde mostly in residents of 0-14 years.Falls and traffic injuries occured mostly in residents of 15-34 years;falls and wrench occured mostly in the residents ≥60 years.Disability rate caused by injuries was 0.77%.Mortality rate caused by injuries was 0.38%.In average,the potential life lost was 27 years for each death of the injury.Direct economic loss was 1 851 RMB yuan.The resting days was 24.4 days and the duration with other's care was 12.8 days for each case of injury.Conclusion Injury was common and frequently happened incident among the residents of Shanghai and induced heavy socio-economic loss.The injury prevention should be enhanced.