Monitoring Injuries Associated with Mandated Children’s Products in Australia: What Can the Data Tell Us?

Kirsten Vallmuur, Caroline Lukaszyk and Jesani Catchpoole
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Kirsten Vallmuur: Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove 4059, Australia
Caroline Lukaszyk: The George Institute for Global Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2042, Australia
Jesani Catchpoole: Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove 4059, Australia

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Mandatory standard regulation is used within Australia to ensure the safety of consumer products, preventing product-related injury. Standard regulation is particularly important for products designed for use by children, who are highly vulnerable to sustaining product-related injuries due to their small size and inability to identify product hazards. This project aims to investigate how effectively information regarding product-related injuries is able to be captured within Australian health and coronial data. Further, it aims to investigate the extent to which child injury occurs for products for which mandatory safety standards exist through the review of available data. This study highlights significant limitations in injury surveillance data for identification and monitoring of child product-related injuries. This in turn limits the evidence base to assess the efficacy of existing regulations. Available data show baby walkers, cots, prams, nightwear, and bunk beds to be associated with a considerable number of child hospital presentations, admissions, and deaths. A significant scope for improvement in current product injury recording practices in the health sector exists.

Keywords: child injury; injury surveillance; injury data; product-related injury; consumer product safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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