Injury Prevention articles from September 2001

Injury Prevention archives from September 2001

Mentoring and momenti: on timely thanks.(editor thanks those who have mentored him)
September 1, 2001... The original title for this editorial was "saying goodbye and thanks" but it occurred to me that some might leap to the conclusion that I have decided to retire as editor. Being uncertain whether this would be greeted with glee or gloom, I...

In this issue: the editor's two cents.(summary of topics on safety and accident prevention articles in this journal)
September 1, 2001... The Opinion-Dissent columns in this issue (p 176) are not quite as vitriolic as the risk compensation debate, but none the less represent sharp disagreement over the road traffic safety record in the United States. Much of the debate revolves...

Banning the "A word": where's the evidence?(negative connotations of accident)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Background--It is argued that use of the term "accident" has a negative effect on prevention efforts as the term implies that such events are due to chance. Aim--To test the hypothesis that use of "injury" in place of...

Death and injury from motor vehicle crashes: a public health failure, not an achievement.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the United States government's leading agency in public health, published a document entitled Motor Vehicle Safety: A 20th Public Health Achievement. [1] We suggest, however, that the record shows...

Public health and traffic safety: a collaborative success.(response to Ed Richter and others in this issue)
September 1, 2001... In our original article, we showed graphically that deaths/100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the United States have been steadily decreasing since 1925. [1] We also showed motor vehicle related death rates/100 000 population decreased...

People.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... After seven years as Director of the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT), the UK's principal child safety organisation, Carol Sherriff has moved on. She has been appointed chair of a primary care trust, the local statutory health body that...

Safety belt adverts aimed at African-Americans.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NHTSA has announced the completion of a series of radio public service announcements by the Advertising Council aimed at safety belt education. These announcements focus on seat belt use among African-Americans. Motor vehicle crashes are the...

125dB limit for impulsive noise from toys--at last.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The March issue of the ANEC newsletter reported that the long battle on acoustic requirements for toys may have come to an end, with results for which ANEC had been fighting. The European Commission proposed to European Union member states that...

Record fine against children's product manufacturer.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced in April that Cosco Inc of Columbus, Indiana, and Safety 1st Inc, of Canton, Massachusetts, have agreed to pay a total of $1.75 million in civil penalties to settle CPSC charges that...

Recall of disposable lighters after 4 year old dies.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... In April, a California company voluntarily recalled about 13 million disposable lighters, the lighters' child resistant mechanisms being frequently ineffective. Young children are able to operate the lighters, posing a fire hazard. CPSC and the...

Another huge US recall.(Evenflo Juvenile Furniture Co. recalls baby carriers)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... US child restraint giant, Evenflo, is recalling about 3.4 million Joyride infant car seats and carriers, CPSC and NHTSA announced in May. When the seat is used as an infant carrier, the handle can unexpectedly release, causing the seat to flip...

"Bouncy castle" death.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... A child in Adelaide, Australia was killed and an adult and five other children seriously injured when a "bouncy castle" amusement device broke its restraints and became airborne. The devices are inflated plastic with three sides and a floor in...

NEISS expanded to all injuries.(National Electronic Injury Surveillance System )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The CPSC's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) has expanded from a system that collects hospital emergency room data on injuries due to consumer products to include emergency room data on all injuries. Currently, NEISS...

World forum for harmonisation of vehicle regulations.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... ANEC, through Consumers International, participated in the March 2001 meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe meeting of Working Party 29, the World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations. Consumer groups are...

Effective interventions for preventing motor vehicle related injuries.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... A special report, Motor Vehicle Occupant Injury: Strategies for Increasing Use of Child Safety Seats, Increasing Use of Safety Belts, and Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving was published on May 18 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly...

ANEC calls for reform of the European standardization system.(American Nuclear Energy Council)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... ANEC has published a position paper addressing its major concerns and the requests consumers have with respect to the principles of European standardisation, greater involvement of public authorities, efficiency, financing, and international...

Doctors and gun control.(gun violence prevention association)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The US continues to struggle with the toll of firearm deaths, although 1998 data showed a decline over previous years. In an effort to bring a comprehensive medical perspective to the problem of handgun injury, a coalition of medical societies...

New Injury Research Centre in Australia.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The new Injury Research Centre at the University of Western Australia is building on the existing Road Accident Prevention Research Unit, established in the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, in 1989. The aim of the unit has been...

AMA advice on preventing Scooter injuries.(American Medical Association )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... This column has previously addressed the growing problem of injuries associated with non-motorized scooters. The American Medical Association (AMA) recently encouraged public and private sectors to provide scooter injury prevention information...

Teaching tool to cut child road deaths.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Every year almost 6000 children are killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads. Now thanks to a new Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) web site, kids will be able to pick up life saving road safety skills as...

Red light cameras reduce crashes at junctions.(includes item on National Agricultural Safety Database)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Installing cameras to catch drivers who run red lights does reduce crashes at intersections, according to a new study released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). IIHS says it found crashes at intersections in Oxnard,...

New Zealand KidSafe Week.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Preventing childhood poisoning and motor vehicle passenger injuries are the two themes of KidSafe Week, being held from 12-19 October 2001. Plunket Society staff and volunteers are becoming involved in local coalitions and 15 planning days are...

Children inside cars.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... General Motors has announced the development of a sensor designed to indicate when a vehicle's interior temperature rises and a breathing being (child, dog, infant) is detected inside the passenger compartment. A distinct horn alarm would then...

US National Poisons Prevention Week.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Each year, unintentional poisonings from medicines and household chemicals kill about 30 children and prompt more than one million calls to poison control centers in the US. The 40th National Poison Prevention Week in March aimed to help...

Safety commendation to McDonald's.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The CPSC announced in May that its Chairman had awarded the Chairman's Commendation to McDonald's Corp of Oak Brook, Illinois. The award commends McDonald's for providing CPSC with state-of-the-art technology that aims to keep children safe....

Keep kids Out of hot water.
September 1, 2001... There are 350 000 burn and scald injuries in the home each year in the UK with children under 5 years being most at risk. The most common cause of these injuries to young children is hot drinks with hot bath water also being a key factor,...

Profile of Victorian injuries.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The extra long March 2001 edition of Hazard compares the injury profiles of different geographic regions in Victoria, indicating broad priority areas for prevention. Additionally, this important dataset provides a reference baseline enabling...

Hook hazards.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Environmental health officers in Bolton in the north of England have warned of the dangers of metal display hooks in shops, after a serious incident that almost blinded a 2 year old. The incident took place in November 1999 in a Matalan store,...

Relationship between licensing, registration, and other gun sales laws and the source state of crime guns.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To determine the association between licensing and registration of firearm sales and an indicator of gun availability to criminals. Methods--Tracing data on all crime guns recovered in 25 cities in the United...

The new Brazilian traffic code and some characteristics of victims in southern Brazil.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--The aim was to study characteristics of traffic accident victims before and after the implementation of the new Brazilian traffic code, in January 1998. Subjects and methods--The study population was car and...

Drowsiness, counter-measures to drowsiness, and the risk of a motor vehicle crash.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Knowledge of how different indicators of drowsiness affect crash risk might be useful to drivers. This study sought to estimate how drowsiness related factors, and factors that might counteract drowsiness, are related...

Law enforcement officers' opinions about gun locks: anchors on life jackets?(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--One way law enforcement officers support firearm safety is by promoting the use of gun locks. This investigation examined law enforcement officers' willingness to use gun locks on their own guns, as well as their...

Injuries among teens employed in the homebuilding industry in North Carolina.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To describe injuries of teens employed in the residential construction industry and to assess whether their injury experiences are significantly different from those of adults in this high risk industry. Methods...

Booster seats for child passengers: lessons for increasing their use.
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To explore parental knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and barriers to use of booster seats in cars for 4-8 year old children. Methods--Three focus groups conducted by a professional marketing firm. Results--Many...

Host and environment factors for exposure to poisons: a case-control study of preschool children in Thailand.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To identify host and environment characteristics associated with poison exposure among preschool children in Thailand. Setting--A matched case-control study in 20 public hospitals in Khon Kaen province. ...

Bicycle helmet use among schoolchildren--the influence of parental involvement and children's attitudes.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To study attitudes towards and use of bicycle helmets among schoolchildren; to determine whether these attitudes are associated with the involvement of parents and school in bike safety. Settings--Nine intermediate...

Maternal use of baby walkers with young children: recent trends and possible alternatives.
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To examine recent trends in baby walker and exersaucer use, and to assess maternal motivations for choosing to use or not use these devices with children. Setting--Small, Midwestern city in the United States. ...

Mandatory helmet legislation and children's exposure to cycling.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Background--Mandatory helmet legislation for cyclists is the subject of much debate. Opponents of helmet legislation suggest that making riders wear helmets will reduce ridership, thus having a negative overall impact on health....

Self strangulation by hanging from cloth towel dispensers in Canadian schools.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To investigate a local "epidemic" of incidents of strangulation by hanging from continuous cloth towels in dispensers. Method--The coroner's office in all provinces and territories were contacted. Five cases of...

Investigation of bias after data linkage of hospital admissions data to police road traffic crash reports.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Research question--Does a database of hospital admission data linked to police road traffic accident (RTA) reports produce less biased information for the injury prevention policymaker, planner, and practitioner than police RTA...

Underreporting of traffic injuries involving children in Japan.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Background--Significant underreporting of road traffic injuries by the police has been documented, even in developed countries. The objective of this study was to c1arify the magnitude of underreporting of police data in Japan....

Applicability of CDC guidelines toward the development of an injury surveillance system in the Caribbean.
September 1, 2001... Deaths from injuries worldwide are expected to increase 65% from 5.1 million in 1990 to 8.4 million by 2020. [1] This projection is based on increases in population size and age, particularly in young adult men who are at the highest risk of...

Updating the evidence. A systematic review of what works in preventing childhood unintentional injuries: Part 2.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Injuries in the home environment Four recent studies focus on the prevention of home accidents at a general level. [1-4] These papers suggest that, while educational campaigns and equipment loan schemes may be potentially effective in...

LETTERS.
September 1, 2001... "Banana boating" EDITOR,--We wish to report two patients who presented to our accident and emergency department having recently returned from holidays abroad, where they had partaken in "banana boating", an increasingly popular holiday...

Editorial Board Member: brief biography.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... DANILO BLANK Danilo Blank is a professor of pediatrics at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) School of Medicine, in southern Brazil, acting chiefly as senior attending at the outpatient department, and his main teaching...

SPLINTERS & FRAGMENTS.(items on injury prevention)
September 1, 2001... Readers of Splinters & Fragments, especially those on a budget, will be interested in the web site Free Medical Journals.com [http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/]. This site provides links and descriptions to free, full text online journals,...

The relevance of occupational injury research.
September 1, 2001... This supplement to Injury Prevention focuses on occupational injury prevention research. It comprises papers that were presented at the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS) 2000 held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 17-19 October...

Public health approaches to occupational injury prevention: do they work?
September 1, 2001... Occupational injuries represent a considerable part of the injury burden to society, affecting people in the most productive years of their lives. Globally, almost 1000 workers are killed by injuries every day, and about six of every 1000...

From strategy to reality: 25 years of planning and progress in occupational injury research.
September 1, 2001... It is a challenge to identify an area other than occupational injuries that has such a tremendous impact on public health, and yet has had such a limited foundation of sound science to guide prevention. Although workplace safety issues have...

Use of narrative analysis for comparisons of the causes of fatal accidents in three countries: New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To investigate the utility of narrative analysis of text information for describing the mechanism of injury and to compare the patterns of the mechanism of injury for work related fatalities in three countries. ...

Non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses treated in hospital emergency departments in the United States.
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To estimate the number and rate of occupational injuries and illnesses treated in hospital emergency departments and to characterize the nature, event, and source of injury and illness. Setting--Twenty four hour...

The Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program's role in the prevention of occupational fatalities.
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--The objective of the Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program is to prevent traumatic occupational fatalities in the United States by identifying and investigating work situations at high risk for...

Fire incidents involving regulators used in portable oxygen systems.
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To address the causes and prevention of fire incidents involving aluminum bodied oxygen regulators used by firefighters or emergency medical technicians. Methods--The National Institute for Occupational Safety and...

Case-crossover studies of occupational trauma: methodological caveats.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--The case-crossover study design was developed to examine triggers for the onset of myocardial infarction. This paper seeks to examine selected methodological issues when applying the case-crossover method to the study...

Thermal protective uniforms and hoods: impact of design modifications and water content on burn prevention in New York City firefighters: laboratory and field results.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To determine (1) the effectiveness of hoods in reducing head burns, (2) the impact of clothes worn under the protective outer uniform (modern = long sleeve shirt and long pants; modified modern = short sleeve T-shirt...

Height, surface firmness, and visual reference effects on balance control.(construction workers)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To investigate the effects of height, surface firmness, and visual reference on standing balance in construction workers. Design--Controlled laboratory study with balanced repeated measures. ...

Preventing tractor rollover fatalities: performance of the NIOSH AutoROPS.(National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, rollover protective structure)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Approximately 132 agricultural tractor overturn fatalities occur per year. The use of rollover protective structures (ROPS), along with seat belts, is the best known method for preventing these fatalities. One impediment to ROPS...

Agricultural Disability Awareness and Risk Education (AgDARE) for high school students.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objective-Develop and test a farm health and injury prevention educational intervention for high school agriculture students. Setting-Twenty one high schools in Kentucky, Iowa, and Mississippi. Methods--A quasiexperimental...

Prevention of construction falls by organizational intervention.
September 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Determine if a university based (third party) intervention can improve construction contractor organizational performance to increase use of fall prevention practices and technologies. Setting--Falls are the...

Injury prevention and occupational safety: four questions, three answers.
September 1, 2001... Author's note: This paper is written in the first person for two reasons. First, I teach writers to use the "active voice" whenever possible and must practise what I preach. Second, and more germane, this is a highly personal account of my...