Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention
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Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of serious spinal injury in most developed nations. However, since these injuries are rare, systematic analyses of the crash factors that are predictive of spinal injury have rarely been performed. This study aimed to use a population-reference crash sample to identify crash factors associated with moderate to severe spinal injury, and how these vary with occupant age. ⋯ While the risk of serious spinal injury in motor vehicle crashes is low, these injuries are more common in crashes of higher severity or into fixed objects, and in the presence of intrusion. There are elevated risks of spinal injury for older occupants compared with younger adults, which may reflect changes in biomechanical tolerances with age. Children appear to be at lower risk of serious spinal injury than adults except in frontal crashes.
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To estimate the association between wearing a personal floatation device (PFD) and death by drowning among recreational boaters. ⋯ If the estimated association is causal, wearing a PFD may potentially prevent one in two drowning deaths among recreational boaters. However, this estimate may be biased because many vessels had to be excluded from the analysis.