PEDIATRIC PEDESTRIAN INJURIES - A COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT USING A HOSPITAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

Objective: To provide a descriptive demographic and environmental acco unt of pedestrian injuries among children aged less than or equal to 1 5 years in Jefferson County, Alabama. Methods: This was a retrospectiv e study with a case definition for inclusion of individuals, aged less than or equal to 15 years, who suffered a pedestrian injury and sough t care at The Children's Hospital of Alabama between 1989 and 1991. De mographic and injury-related information was obtained from the medical record and analyses were performed using t-test and a simple correlat ion. Results: The majority of the cases were nonwhite, and nearly half had Medicaid or were uninsured. The most common injuries were fractur es and closed head trauma. The geographic locations of injury events w ere not uniformly distributed: a comparison of areas wherein an injury occurred with those that were injury-free revealed a number of signif icant differences with regard to specific demographic, socioeconomic, and ecological factors. Conclusions: Some of the possible manageable e nvironmental risk factors identified in this study were relatively hig h posted speed limits; sidewalks that were narrow, absent, or in a sta te of disrepair; vehicular parking on both sides of the street; and th e absence of a divided highway. In this community, the most cost-effec tive educational intervention may best be targeted to elementary-aged schoolchildren living in areas with low-income families and that have a high density of children.