This scientific poster describes a study in which a new appproach, Biomechanical Epidemiology (BE), was used. The aim was to collect biomechanical data pertaining to injury circumstances in the acute care setting regarding paediatric bicyclist and pedestrian injury incidents. Through BE, the strengths of the engineering, medical and epidemiological approaches were incorporated into all study phases from design to analysis of results. The self-administered questionnaire was completed by pre-hospital care providers transporting injured pedestrians and bicyclists less than 18 years old to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (USA). A random sample survey of responses was validated by professional professional crash reconstruction. Pre-hospital care provider survey responses were compared with the responses of the injured child, witnesses and relatives regarding the same incident. Epidemiological, biomechanical and kinematic data were collected on 195 children. 132 cases involved injured child pedestrians; 63 cases involved injured child bicyclists. Data collected included impact direction, body surfaces impacted, vehicle speed, and distance child was thrown. Preliminary analysis indicated that the one parameter routinely asked in the clinical setting, vehicle speed, was the parameter about which the pre-hospital care providers were most uncertain.
Abstract