Trends in child injury death

• Overview
• Major causes

Overview

Over the period since 1979, the total number of children in each age group has remained relatively constant. Table 2 shows child injury counts and rates by major age group for the period 1979-1994. It can be seen that counts and rates show similar patterns.

Figure 1 Child injury death rate per 100,000 persons by age group Australia 1979-1994

Table 2 Child injury deaths counts and rates by age group Australia 1979-1994

	0-4 yrs	5-9 yrs	10-14 yrs	Total 0-14	0-4 yrs	5-9 yrs	10-14 yrs
	Count				Rate per 100,000
1979	336	184	180	700	29.42	13.90	14.37
1980	329	173	212	714	29.06	13.24	16.66
1981	261	178	152	591	22.90	14.02	11.55
1982	342	165	207	714	29.60	13.36	15.28
1983	294	142	175	611	25.12	11.74	12.76
1984	252	116	156	524	21.29	9.78	11.43
1985	265	142	140	547	22.09	12.08	10.36
1986	270	123	145	538	22.34	10.43	11.05
1987	254	113	153	520	20.85	9.45	12.02
1988	252	127	144	523	20.49	10.42	11.51
1989	239	109	132	480	19.21	8.79	10.64
1990	238	129	121	488	18.92	10.22	9.80
1991	184	104	107	395	14.47	8.17	8.62
1992	210	104	92	406	16.41	8.13	7.36
1993	218	92	105	415	16.95	7.20	8.32
1994	163	75	92	330	12.64	5.86	7.22

A clear downward trend can be seen for all age groups (Figure 1). Table 3 shows the percentage reduction in injury counts and rates for each age group and for children as a whole. All age groups show approximately a halving of the deaths rates and numbers in the period under study. Overall the number of deaths among children aged under fifteen declined by 51.3 per cent. The decline has been greater than for persons over the age of fifteen.

Table 3 Percentage reduction in child injury deaths by age group Australia 1979-1994 Age group 0-4 5-9 10-14 Reduction in numbers 51.5% 59.2% 48.9% Reduction in rates 57.0% 57.8% 49.8%

Major causes

The total burden of child injury death can be seen to be made up of a range of causes that vary in significance for the different age groups. The trends in these causes for the age groups where they are of particular significance have been plotted in Figure 2 to Figure 6. Once deaths are considered for individual causes, single age groups and by sex, a lot of variability is experienced because small differences from year to year are large relative to the base. For this reason the figures that follow, chart three year moving average rates per 100,000 persons. They are labelled according to the third year of the series. Thus the period 1979-1981 is labelled as 1981. For the sake of simplicity, counts are used in these figures.

Table 4 Child injury deaths(excluding medical misadventure) Australia 1994 Counts and rates per 100,000 persons by major cause group

	0-4 yrs		5-9 yrs		10-14 yrs
	count	rate	count	rate	count	rate
Motor vehicle driver	1	.	1	.	1	.
Motor vehicle passenger or unspec occ	31	2.40	17	1.33	25	1.96
Motor cycle driver	0	.	0	.	1	.
Motor cycle passenger or unspecified	0	.	0	.	0	.
Pedal cyclist or passenger	0	.	6	0.47	11	0.86
Pedestrian	16	1.20	15	1.17	18	1.41
Animal related	1	.	0	.	0	.
Other transport	0	.	2	.	2	.
Fall	1	.	1	.	3	.
Drowning, incl. pool, quenching tank	35	2.70	5	0.39	0	.
Drowning other	13	1.00	6	0.47	5	0.39
Other threat to breathing	17	1.30	4	0.31	6	0.47
Fire flames smoke	14	1.10	8	0.63	5	0.39
Hot drink food steam etc	0	.	0	.	0	.
Hot object or substance	0	.	0	.	0	.
Poisoning drugs and medicinals	2	.	0	.	3	.
Poisoning other or unspecified substance	2	.	1	.	1	.
Firearms	2	.	3	.	2	.
Cutting, piercing object	7	0.50	1	.	2	.
Strike/struck by object or person	5	0.40	0	.	3	.
Machinery in operation	3	.	2	.	2	.
Electricity	2	.	0	.	2	.
Hot conditions	0	.	0	.	0	.
Cold conditions	0	.	0	.	0
Other specified external cause	6	0.43	3	0.23	0
Unspecified external cause	5	0.40	0	.	0
All causes excluding medical misadventure	163	12.64	75	5.86	92	7.22

Note: Rates are suppressed where number of cases on which they are based is less than 4.
See Data Issues section for definition of major cause groups.

Figure 2 Trends in child motor vehicle occupant deaths by age and sex Australia Three year moving average rate 1979-1994

Figure 3 Trends in child pedal cycle deaths by age and sex Australia Three year moving average rate 1979-1994

Figure 4 Trends in child pedestrian deaths by age and sex Australia Three year moving average rate 1979-1994

Figure 5 Trends in child drowning deaths by age and sex Australia Three year moving average rate 1979-1994

Figure 6 Trends in child fire and flame related deaths by age and sex Australia Three year moving average rate 1979-1994

The child injury death rate has improved significantly over the sixteen year period presented here. Further reductions may be achievable. It is, therefore, important to consider the current injury pattern. Unfortunately, times series hospitalisation data has not been available. More recently however, some data have become available and these will be used in conjunction with deaths data to explore patterns of child injury.