Ten-Year Incidence of Sport and Recreation Injuries Resulting in Major Trauma or Death in Victoria, Australia, 2005-2015

Abstract

Background:Sports injuries that result in major trauma or death are associated with significant health care burden and societal costs. An understanding of changes in injury trends, and their drivers, is needed to implement policy aimed at risk reduction and injury prevention. To date, population-level reporting has not been available regarding trends in serious sport and recreation injuries anywhere in Australia over such an extended period, nor have any studies of this length captured comprehensive, long-term data on all sports-related major trauma internationally.Purpose:To describe the incidence of sport and active recreation injuries resulting in major trauma or death over a 10-year period (July 2005 to June 2015) in the state of Victoria, Australia.Study Design:Descriptive epidemiological study.Methods:All sport and active recreation–related major trauma cases and deaths in Victoria, Australia, over a 10-year period were extracted from the population-level Victorian State Trauma Registry and the National Coroners Information System. Poisson regression analysis was used to examine trends in the incidence of sport and active recreation–related major trauma and death.Results:The 10-year study period entailed 2847 nonfatal major trauma cases and 614 deaths (including 96 in-hospital deaths). The highest frequencies of major trauma cases and deaths were in cycling, motor sports, and equestrian activities. The participation-adjusted major trauma and death rate was 12.2 per 100,000 participants per year over the study period. An 8% increase was noted in the rate of nonfatal major trauma (incident rate ratio [IRR], 1.08; 95% CI, 1.06-1.10; P < .001) and a 7% decrease in the death rate (IRR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.90-0.97; P < .001). Significant increases were found in the rates of major trauma (including deaths) in equestrian activities, motor sports, and cycling.Conclusion:The death rate from sport and active recreation decreased by more than half over the course of 10 years in Victoria, while the rate of nonfatal major trauma almost doubled. This increase is largely attributable to equestrian activities, motor sports, and cycling. Study findings highlight the need to prioritize investments in the prevention of trauma in these activities.

Electrospun Polyvinylidene Fluoride-Based Fibrous Scaffolds with Piezoelectric Characteristics for Bone and Neural Tissue Engineering

“…Recently, bone defects and diseases remain a major health issue globally because of the rise in injuries due to osteoporosis, bone cancer, sport activity and traffic accident [27,28,29,30,31,32]. This leads to an urgent need in the biomedical sector to develop biocompatible substitutes to replace and regenerate defective bone tissues [33].…”

Injury deaths in Australian sport and recreation: Identifying and assessing priorities for prevention

“…This is partly due to the use of different data sources. As examples, in Victoria, Australia, there were 614 fatalities relating to sport and recreation identified from a trauma registry between 2005-2015 [11]. An earlier study of the same region reported 48 deaths between 2001-2003 [20].…”

“…Internationally, the National Centre for Catastrophic Sports Injury Reporting (NCCSIR) in the USA has used data since the mid 1900's to inform preventative policy decisions that have saved lives and reduced serious injury in a range of sports including American football, basketball, cheerleading and pole vaulting [10]. In Australia, sports deaths have been reported using State trauma registries [11], hospital admissions [12], media files [13], and insurance claims [14]. Each of these studies provides evidence that fatalities in community Australian sport and recreation occur.…”

To Analyze Thrill, Define Extreme Sports

“…As noted by Brymer (2005, unpublished), each of these activities can be carried out at various degrees of difficulty, danger, and expertise. The medical literature does not consider that aspect, since its focus is on patients as they present for treatment, and on the types, frequencies, and treatment of injuries ( Caine, 2012 ; Sharma et al, 2015 ; Laver et al, 2017 ; Caine and Provance, 2018 ; Ekegren et al, 2018 ; Emery, 2018 ).…”

“…Because of the focus on injuries, the meaning of extreme sports in the medical literature is quite broad ( Caine, 2012 ; Sharma et al, 2015 ; Laver et al, 2017 ; Caine and Provance, 2018 ), sometimes including activities such as horse riding and mountain biking ( Dodwell et al, 2010 ) as well as, e.g., parachuting and BASE jumping ( Feletti et al, 2017 ); skiing and snowboarding ( Graves et al, 2013 ; Frühauf et al, 2017 ); surfing ( Pikora et al, 2012 ; Klick et al, 2016 ); kiteboarding and related sports ( Feletti and Brymer, 2018 ; Morvan et al, 2018 ); whitewater rafting and kayaking; and climbing and mountaineering ( Soulé et al, 2017a , b ). This is logical from a medical perspective, since injury rates from horse riding and mountain biking are indeed high, both in total and per capita ( Ekegren et al, 2018 ). Medical statistics, however, may not differentiate between a guided horse riding tour at walking speed, and a steeplechase or rodeo.…”