Hospital data reveals injury hotspots

A DECADE of Victorian emergency room data shows that older women are having serious falls on public transport, whereas those most likely to get badly hurt when boating are young men.

Transport Safety Victoria (TSV) asked the Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit – part of the Monash University Accident Research Centre – to analyse hospital admission data for patients injured on buses, trams or recreational boats between 2005/06 and 2014/15, and released the figures last month.

Of the 846 people who presented at hospital with bus-related injuries, 68.3 per cent were female, 64.4 per cent were aged over 60 years, and fractures were the most common injury (47.5 per cent).

Of the 521 people who presented at hospital with tram-related injuries, 60.3 per cent were female, 74.1 per cent were aged 60 years and over, and fractures again were the most common injury (49.7 per cent).

Of the 1,094 people who presented at hospital with boating-related injuries, 72.1 per cent were male, 29.1 per cent were aged between 15 and 29, and injuries to the lower extremities were the most common (31.7 per cent).

TSV director David Hourigan said the data helped the authority understand who was getting hurt and why, allowing it to more precisely target its safety messaging and measures.

“TSV receives reports from operators about incidents on buses and trams when a person has been injured, and is also notified about serious incidents involving recreational boats.

“We know that our data is incomplete – most recreational boaters don’t report safety incidents. For example, boating collisions represent about 2 per cent of incidents reported to TSV each year, but insurers tell us that collisions comprise about 70 per cent of their claims.

“With the information from the hospital admissions filling in some of the gaps, TSV can influence policy development and be confident that our regulatory approach is based on good quality data.”

In the future, TSV plans to engage an economist to quantify the costs of slips, trips and falls to the individual, the State Budget and the Victorian economy overall, and work with hospitals and the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure coding is more accurate regarding types of accidents and related information.

To read the full reports and TSV’s safety advice for passengers, head to transportsafety.vic.gov.au.