Research investigating the differences between road users from a non-English speaking background (NESB) and the English speaking population (ESB) is inconclusive. Other variables such as socioeconomic status, education level, employment, residence in areas of high population density and duration of residence may be as important or more so as a predictor of crash involvement than ethnicity. Statistics should also be analysed to take account of exposure, such as unit of travel or number of trips taken. As crash statistics databases maintained by the Police do not include an ethnicity variable, the aim of the project was to examine crash involvement of NESB groups using other datasets. Hospital injury databases code preferred language and country of birth, but contain too many 'unknowns'. Other Australian Hospital datasets were investigated, but were not be coded any more completely than Victoria's or the number of NESB cases was too small. The National Coronial Information System, various comprehensive and third-party insurance databases, and ABS data sources were also not able to provide useful or complete information to determine the crash involvement of NESB groups. Generating a more complete set of hospital data is the most attractive option for collecting data, possibly concentrating on a particular hospital or network in a high density NESB location. The time needed to accumulate sufficient data would be dependent on the number of hospitals participating and the percentage of their clients who can be classified as NESB. (Author/publisher)
Abstract