Skip to main content
American Journal of Public Health logoLink to American Journal of Public Health
. 1989 Aug;79(8):995–998. doi: 10.2105/ajph.79.8.995

A case-control study of pedestrian and bicyclist injuries in childhood.

I B Pless 1, R Verreault 1, S Tenina 1
PMCID: PMC1349893  PMID: 2751039

Abstract

We identified children ages 0 to 14 years injured in traffic as pedestrians or bicyclists in Montreal, Canada. Two hundred children with injuries who received a score of 2 or more on the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Severity scale were considered as cases and compared with 400 uninjured children seen in the same hospitals for non-traumatic reasons. Systematic, blinded interviews and tests were conducted with parents to determine the role of a series of social, familial, personal, and behavioral characteristics. After adjustment for age, gender and socioeconomic area of residence, logistic regression analyses showed higher risks of injury to be related to fewer years of parents' education, a history of accident to a family member, an environment judged as unsafe, and poor parental supervision. Absence of physical health problems, fewer family preventive behaviors and reported lack of cautiousness were also related to a higher risk, whereas neither aggressivity nor behavioral disturbance, whether internalizing or externalizing, showed any such relation. These data suggest that the child's personality and behavior are weaker risk factors for pedestrian and bicyclist injuries than are family and neighborhood characteristics.

Full text

PDF
995

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Baker S. P., Robertson L. S., O'Neill B. Fatal pedestrian collisions: driver negligence. Am J Public Health. 1974 Apr;64(4):318–325. doi: 10.2105/ajph.64.4.318. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bijur P. E., Stewart-Brown S., Butler N. Child behavior and accidental injury in 11,966 preschool children. Am J Dis Child. 1986 May;140(5):487–492. doi: 10.1001/archpedi.1986.02140190097036. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Brookmeyer R., Liang K. Y., Linet M. Matched case-control designs and overmatched analyses. Am J Epidemiol. 1986 Oct;124(4):693–701. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a114443. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Conn J. M. Deaths from motor vehicle-related injuries, 1978-1984. MMWR CDC Surveill Summ. 1988 Feb;37(1):5–12. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Guyer B., Talbot A. M., Pless I. B. Pedestrian injuries to children and youth. Pediatr Clin North Am. 1985 Feb;32(1):163–174. doi: 10.1016/s0031-3955(16)34764-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Horwitz S. M., Morgenstern H., DiPietro L., Morrison C. L. Determinants of pediatric injuries. Am J Dis Child. 1988 Jun;142(6):605–611. doi: 10.1001/archpedi.1988.02150060039026. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Husband P., Hinton P. E. Families of children with repeated accidents. Arch Dis Child. 1972 Jun;47(253):396–400. doi: 10.1136/adc.47.253.396. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. KRALL V. Personality characteristics of accident repeating children. J Abnorm Psychol. 1953 Jan;48(1):99–107. doi: 10.1037/h0054392. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Langley J., McGee R., Silva P., Williams S. Child behavior and accidents. J Pediatr Psychol. 1983 Jun;8(2):181–189. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/8.2.181. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Langley J. The "accident prone" child -- the perpetration of a myth. Aust Paediatr J. 1982 Dec;18(4):243–246. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Manheimer D. I., Mellinger G. D. Personality characteristics of the child accident repeater. Child Dev. 1967 Jun;38(2):491–513. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Padilla E. R., Rohsenow D. J., Bergman A. B. Predicting accident frequency in children. Pediatrics. 1976 Aug;58(2):223–226. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Pless I. B., Roghmann K. J. Safety restraints for children in automobiles: who uses them? Can J Public Health. 1978 Jul-Aug;69(4):289–292. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Pless I. B., Verreault R., Arsenault L., Frappier J. Y., Stulginskas J. The epidemiology of road accidents in childhood. Am J Public Health. 1987 Mar;77(3):358–360. doi: 10.2105/ajph.77.3.358. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Rivara F. P., Barber M. Demographic analysis of childhood pedestrian injuries. Pediatrics. 1985 Sep;76(3):375–381. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Wadsworth J., Burnell I., Taylor B., Butler N. Family type and accidents in preschool children. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1983 Jun;37(2):100–104. doi: 10.1136/jech.37.2.100. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Wicklund K., Moss S., Frost F. Effects of maternal education, age, and parity on fatal infant accidents. Am J Public Health. 1984 Oct;74(10):1150–1152. doi: 10.2105/ajph.74.10.1150. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from American Journal of Public Health are provided here courtesy of American Public Health Association

RESOURCES