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News

Decline in head injuries not due to helmet laws

Research that has looked at child bicycle-related injury rates (head and other) in Canada over the past decade has found that head injury rates are declining. However, this is not consistent across the country, nor is it attributable to cycle helmet legislation as some provinces with legislation experienced a decline while others did not.

During the 10 years there were 23,685 hospital admissions due to bicycle-related injuries among Canadian children age 5–19 (76% boys and 24% girls). A total of 22% of the children sustained a head injury while 78% had other injuries due to a bicycle incident. 22% of boys and 21% of grils incurred a head injury. The injury rate varied by age group and by provincial legislation status.

Childhood bicycle related injuries were extracted from the Canadian Institute for Health Information hospital admissions database. Injury rates were calculated for each province for children aged 5–19 using 2001 census data.

The outcome of the research is significant as one of the authors is Alison Macpherson who has previously been an author of much pro-helmet research and an active campaigner for helmet laws.

Wed 23 Nov 2011

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