Citation

Nilson F, Damsager J, Lauritsen J, Bonander CM. PLoS One 2018; 13(12): e0208393.

Affiliation

Institute of Medicine, Health Metrics Unit, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0208393

PMID

30586418

Abstract

As dog bite injuries are a considerable problem in modern society, in order to reduce such injuries, breed-specific legislation has been introduced in a number of countries. Whilst many studies have shown a lack of effect with such legislation, the commonly used methodology is known to be flawed. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the Danish breed-specific legislation on the number of dog bite injuries using more credible methods. A time series intervention method was used on a detailed dataset from Odense University Hospital, Denmark, regarding dog bite injuries presented to the emergency department. The results indicate that banning certain breeds has a highly limited effect on the overall levels of dog bite injuries, and that an enforcement of the usage of muzzle and leash in public places for these breeds also has a limited effect. Despite using more credible and sound methods, this study supports previous studies showing that breed-specific legislation seems to have no effect on dog bite injuries. In order to minimise dog bite injuries in the future, it would seem that other interventions or non-breed-specific legislation should be considered as the primary option.

Language: en