From retrieval to recovery: a joint expert perspective on equity and trauma systems reform in regional Northern Queensland, Australia.

Tropical Northern Queensland is a geographically vast jurisdiction, in which Townsville University Hospital serves as the regional comprehensive major trauma centre. Northern Queensland trauma has been an under-examined field, with the evidence base required to characterise its burden and inform equitable care only recently beginning to emerge. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, children, older adults, and those living in regional, rural, and remote communities experience disproportionately higher rates of injury, hospitalisation, higher burden and severity of consequent impairments, and injury-related death - compounded by Northern Queensland's demographic profile and structural inequities that drive injury risk and limit access to care across its expansive catchment. This perspective highlights the growing recognition among specialist clinicians and researchers that advancing trauma research and system development is critical for sustainable and equitable trauma care. In this perspective we introduce two early initiatives, the Townsville University Hospital Trauma Research Program and Trauma Connect - aiming to build the evidence base and foundational structures required to drive regional trauma care reform in Northern Queensland, and more broadly, Australia.