Investigation of bias after data linkage of hospital admissions data to police road traffic crash reports

Abstract

Research question-Does a database of hospital admission data linked to police road traYc accident (RTA) reports produce less biased information for the injury prevention policymaker, planner, and practitioner than police RTA reports alone? Design-Data linkage study. Study population-Non-fatal injury victims of road traYc crashes in southern England who were admitted to hospital. Data sources-Hospital admissions and police RTA reports. Main outcome measures-The estimated proportion of road traYc crashes admitted to hospital that were included on the linked database; distributions by age, sex, and road user groups: (A) for all RTA injury admissions and (B) for RTA serious injury admissions defined by length of stay or by nature of injury. Results-An estimated 50% of RTA injury admissions were included on the linked database. When assessing bias, admissions data were regarded as the "gold standard". The distributions of casualties by age, sex, and type of road user showed major diVerences between the admissions data and the police RTA injury data of comparable severity. The linked data showed smaller diVerences when compared with admissions data. For RTA serious injury admissions, the distributions by age and sex were approximately the same for the linked data compared with admissions data, and there were small but statistically significant diVerences between the distributions across road user group for the linked data compared with hospital admissions. Conclusion-These results suggest that investigators could be misinformed if they base their analysis solely on police RTA data, and that information derived from the linked database is less biased than that from police RTA data alone. A national linked dataset of road traYc crash data should be produced from hospital admissions and police RTA data for use by policymakers, planners and practitioners. (Injury Prevention 2001;7:234-241)

Pattern of Road Traffic Injuries in Lublin County, Poland

“…Data collected by the Police indicate that number of injuries among pedestrians occurring each year in Poland on zebra crossing increased from 27% in 1998 to 29.8% in 2005. The police and in-hospital data vary, but the death and disability rates of injured pedestrians in Poland are enormously high (17,18,19). It is estimated that every 24 minutes one of them is killed or seriously disabled.…”

Risk factors in urban road traffic accidents

“…Informations about road traffic crashes would be biased if the analizes were based solely on traffic police reports data, they are less biased if they derived from the hospital admissions linked database (Cryer et al, 2001 In some other studies in the world, the problems of road traffic accidents in urban area was shown. Hijar M et al (2004) emphasised the economic impact of road traffic accident in an urban area in Mexico.…”

Urban road traffic deaths: data linkage and identification of high-risk population sub-groups

“…From the methodological point of view, database linkage of road traffic accidents was based on the experience of other authors in studies on mortality 15 and morbidity 14 . The strategy confirmed that the two data sources were complementary, by comparing them to the final linked database (BH10-SIM).…”

“…The urban health approach to road traffic accidents by linking and upgrading available databases allows comparing diverse sources 14,15 , thereby contributing to the implementation, development, and monitoring of integrated policies for the prevention of such accidents.…”