Trends in the Incidence of Hospitalisation for Injuries Resulting from Non-traffic Crashes in New South Wales, July 1998 to June 2007

Objective: To describe changes in the incidence of hospitalised injury for New South Wales residents involved in non-traffic crashes for the period 1 July 1998 to 30 June 2007.

Design, Setting And Participants: This study identified 37 480 NSW residents admitted to hospitals for injuries resulting from non-traffic crashes from the NSW Admitted Patients Data Collection during the study period. Injury rates were calculated by applying 2001 census-derived estimates of NSW population figures as the denominator, and directly adjusting to the age distribution of the 2001 Australian population. The significance of trends in rates was assessed by the per cent change annualised estimator.

Main Outcome Measures: Age-standardised rates of hospitalisation for injuries, and trends by inpatient demographics, travel mode and severity of injuries.

Results: The annual rate of hospitalisation for injury showed a significant increase of 0.7% per annum (95% CI, 0.2% to 1.2%) for NSW residents involved in non-traffic crashes over 10 years. Annual hospitalisation rates for serious injuries increased by 2.2% (95% CI, 0.9% to 3.6%). The hospitalised injury rate for motorcyclists and pedal cyclists increased significantly by 3.3% per annum (95% CI, 2.4% to 4.2%) and 3.7% (95% CI, 2.6% to 4.9%), respectively, but the rate declined significantly for car occupants and pedestrians by - 8.3% per annum (95% CI, - 9.5% to - 7.0%) and - 2.2% (95% CI, - 4.2% to - 0.2%) respectively.

Conclusions: The rate of hospitalisation for injury from non-traffic crashes increased significantly over time for NSW residents from 1998-99 to 2007-08, especially for serious injuries and injuries to motorcyclists and pedal cyclists. These findings call for continuing and specific effort to prevent road non-traffic injuries.