Citation

Brown CE, Chishti P, Stone DH. Public Health 2005.

Affiliation

Department of Child Health, Pediatric Epidemiology and Community Health (PEACH) Unit, University of Glasgow, Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow G3 8SJ, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.puhe.2004.10.009

PMID

15885721

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To contrast the socio-economic pattern of childhood injuries presenting to a pediatric accident and emergency (A&E) department revealed by using both a numerator-based and a denominator-based approach to the analysis of injury surveillance data. METHODS: Injury surveillance data collected during 1997-1998 at a Glasgow children's hospital A&E department were analysed. Socio-economic status was measured using Carstairs' deprivation index. Data from West Glasgow postcode sectors only were analysed in order to optimize epidemiological validity. Socio-economic patterning of injury was investigated in two ways-numerator-based and denominator-based. RESULTS: A total of 12,762 children (0-14 years) living in West Glasgow attended the A&E department of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children over the study period. Both analytical approaches showed a clear and statistically significant excess of injury presentations in children from more deprived postcode sectors, but the variation appeared much greater in the numerator-based rather than the denominator-based approach. In regression analysis, however, only the denominator-derived rates showed a statistically significant linear trend across deprivation categories. CONCLUSION: The most appropriate and accurate means of measuring the extent of socio-economic (and other) inequalities in injury risk is to adopt a population-based rather than numerator-based perspective on the data collected by injury surveillance systems.