The National Injury Surveillance Unit (NISU) has access to hospital separation data at the national level and has established a National Road Injury Database on the basis of this information. Available data items include external cause (E-Code), nature of injury (ICD9CM), length of stay in hospital, age, sex and road user status. Through the mapping of ICD9CM codes, information on injury severity and impairment (AIS85, ISS and IIS) is also available. The National Road Injury Database provides a better picture of road injury in Australia than has previously been available. The paper presents a selection of tabulations derived from the database for hospital-admitted bicyclists and pedestrians for the year 1990. The distribution of variables of interest is compared with the distributions for all categories of road user, and differences are highlighted where appropriate. The implications of the data are also discussed. (A)
Samenvatting