5195.0: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 - 2:30 PM

Abstract #4995

Childhood injury in Boston, Massachusetts, 1995-1997

Stacy L. Klingler, BA, Maureen Mata, BS, Jennifer A. Taylor, MPH, and Victoria V. Ozonoff, PhD. Injury Surveillance Program, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 250 Washington Street, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02108, (617) 624-5600, stacy.klingler@state.ma.us

National mortality data have consistently demonstrated that injury is the leading cause of death for children (ages 0-19). Analyses of injury morbidity are less common. In 1994, Massachusetts mandated ICD-9-CM E-coding for all acute care hospital discharges. This report contains analyses of these E-coded injuries from 1995-1997. Boston, as the largest city in the state, presents an opportunity for the examination of this injury morbidity data in an ethnically and economically diverse population.

Data sources are the Uniform Hospital Discharge Data Set (UHDDS), Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) and the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics (Deaths), MDPH.

The following injury types were selected: poisoning, fall, bicycle, fire/burn, pedestrian, self-inflicted, assault, and motor-vehicle occupant. There were 1,765 nonfatal and 69 fatal of these injuries to children from 1995-1997.

Hospitalization data showed disparities by race, sex, age, and injury type. The leading cause of injury to 0-14 year olds was falls (146/100,000). For 15-19 year olds, assault (213/100,000) and self-inflicted (185/100,000) injury outranked falls (98/100,000). Male children experienced a higher rate of injury (550/100,000) than female children (342/100,000) in all cases except self-inflicted hospitalizations (males=31/100,000, females=92/100,000.) Race disparities varied by injury type. For example, black children (145/100,000) were victims of assault almost twice as often as Hispanics (80/100,000) and four times as often as whites (36/100,000), while no differences were found for falls.

This summary can help guide hospital and community prevention efforts by identifying at-risk populations in Boston.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant will be able to: (1) describe childhood injury in Boston; (2) articulate the importance of hospitalization data when discussing injury; (3) identify differences in childhood injuries by demographic information

Keywords: Children and Adolescents, Injury

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

The 128th Annual Meeting of APHA