Trip-fall incidents are often associated with injuries to pedestrians. Sidewalks are susceptible to changes over time, which may result in height deviations between surfaces, creating potential trip hazards. This research assessed whether members of the general public would identify sidewalk elevation changes of various heights as a hazard, how they would rate the walking conditions in the area of the hazard, and whether they would report the condition to authorities. Results indicate that participants were generally unaware of walking surface deficiencies, even though they may regularly encounter surface defects. When specifically asked to rate conditions, participants were most likely to classify elevation changes greater than 0.75 inches as walkway hazards, and only when conditions reached that level did the majority of participants indicate a likelihood of reporting the condition.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.