Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention
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Bicycling is a popular means of recreation and transportation for children; however, it is a leading cause of recreational injury. Bicycle skill development and safety education are important methods of bicycle injury prevention. ⋯ There is a paucity of high-quality research in the area of bicycle skills training programmes. Educational and skills training bicycling programmes may increase knowledge of cycling safety, but this does not seem to translate into a decrease in injury rate, or improved bicycle handling ability and attitudes.
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Cervical spinal cord injuries may result in life-threatening situations and long-term disability. Prehospital spinal immobilisation is the standard of care for patients with potential spinal cord injury (SCI). It aims to prepare patients for transport, achieve neutral spinal alignment, and reduce movement and secondary injuries in potentially unstable spines. However, there is a lack of evidence on its clinical benefits and its overall effect on patient outcomes. ⋯ Evidence-based practices should be pursued to further improve the prehospital care for suspected cervical SCI. This systematic review will contribute to the body of knowledge regarding the spinal immobilisation effects on the SCI patient's outcomes.
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Since many states are considering gun control laws, researchers need reliable data on rates of gun ownership at the state level. Survey measures of gun ownership in all 50 states, however, are only available for 3 years, and no state-level data have been collected since 2004. Consequently, the National Research Council has declared the development of a valid proxy that can be constructed from accessible, annual, state-level data to be a priority. ⋯ The correlations of the new proxy with gun ownership in the two validation studies were 0.95 and 0.97. We conclude that the combination of FS/S and per capita hunting licenses improves substantially upon FS/S alone. This new proxy is easily computed from data that are available annually by state and may be useful for investigating the effect of gun prevalence on firearm-related morbidity and mortality.