A trio of injury reports released last month

Three government agencies recently released reports and statistics on injuries in mid-June: Stats Canada released the (1) Canadian Community Health Survey (including injury statistics) on June 15 the (2) Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released a 13-page report indicating that injury hospitalizations are more likely among lower income groups and the (3) Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD 1998-2010) was released on June 14.

According to new data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), one in seven or 4.1 million Canadians aged 12 and older suffered an activity-limiting injury in 2009. Adolescents aged 12-19 had the highest injury rate. Falls was the most common cause of injury and many injuries happened while taking part in sports or physical exercise, the most common type of injury-causing activity. The data also showed that among the 11.4 million people who reported bicycling, 46 percent said they never wore a helmet when they cycled. Adolescents aged 12-19 were among the group least likely to wear a helmet with only 30 percent wearing one.

The CIHI analysis illustrated that hospitalizations for most major injuries, both unintentional and intentional, present a consistent association with socio-economic status. The analysis found Canadians living in the least affluent neighbourhoods were 30 percent more likely to have an injury leading to hospitalization than people living in the most affluent areas. The only type of injury studied that showed an inverse relationship with socio-economic status was sports-related, which was highest in the most affluent neighbourhoods, potentially reflecting higher participation rates in organized sports.

The Québec report states that injuries represent the most frequent cause of death among children between 1 and 18 years of age (60 percent of deaths) and the third-ranked cause of hospitalizations among children under 18 years of age (11 percent of hospitalizations). In many cases, these injuries are avoidable. This is no doubt why reducing injury-related morbidity constitutes one of the priorities of the Programme national de santé publique 2003-2012 (2003-2012 Québec Public Health Program.) The injuries in question were serious enough to have led to a visit to a health professional or the intention to do so. Each round of the survey also provided information on the cause and place of the most serious injury sustained by the child during the reference period.

Published: Tue, Jul 27, 2010