Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5
Background Aboriginal Canadians are considered to be at increased risk of injury. The de facto standard for measuring injury risk factors among Aboriginal Canadians is to compare hospitalisation and mortality against non-Aboriginal Canadians, but this may be too broad an approach for injury preventi...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 |
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crjcrbmj:10.1136/ip.2010.030866 2024-06-23T07:52:51+00:00 Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 Bell, Nathaniel Schuurman, Nadine Hameed, S Morad Caron, Nadine 2011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 en eng BMJ Injury Prevention volume 17, issue 6, page 394-400 ISSN 1353-8047 1475-5785 journal-article 2011 crjcrbmj https://doi.org/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 2024-06-06T04:15:30Z Background Aboriginal Canadians are considered to be at increased risk of injury. The de facto standard for measuring injury risk factors among Aboriginal Canadians is to compare hospitalisation and mortality against non-Aboriginal Canadians, but this may be too broad an approach for injury prevention and public health if it over-generalises injury risk. Methods Data from this study are drawn from the 2001–5 British Columbia Trauma Registry and British Columbia Coroner's Service. Observed and expected hospitalisations and mortality rates on reserves were assessed against three different spatial aggregations of non-reserve reference populations. Data analysis was conducted in a geographical information system using a Poisson probability map. Results A total of 47 (9.6%) of 487 reserves in British Columbia contained at least one person who was hospitalised or died as a result of serious injury during the study period. Of these, two reserve populations represented 20% (n=19) of all injury morbidity events and 30% (n=22) of all mortality events. Conclusion Evidence from this study suggests that community-based rather than provincial-based injury reporting is less likely to over-generalise the burden of injury among Aboriginal communities. Community-based surveillance enables researchers to identify why severe unintentional and intentional injury continues to burden some communities but not others and avoids the potentially demoralising and stigmatising effects of current surveillance practices. Article in Journal/Newspaper First Nations The BMJ Injury Prevention 17 6 394 400 |
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Background Aboriginal Canadians are considered to be at increased risk of injury. The de facto standard for measuring injury risk factors among Aboriginal Canadians is to compare hospitalisation and mortality against non-Aboriginal Canadians, but this may be too broad an approach for injury prevention and public health if it over-generalises injury risk. Methods Data from this study are drawn from the 2001–5 British Columbia Trauma Registry and British Columbia Coroner's Service. Observed and expected hospitalisations and mortality rates on reserves were assessed against three different spatial aggregations of non-reserve reference populations. Data analysis was conducted in a geographical information system using a Poisson probability map. Results A total of 47 (9.6%) of 487 reserves in British Columbia contained at least one person who was hospitalised or died as a result of serious injury during the study period. Of these, two reserve populations represented 20% (n=19) of all injury morbidity events and 30% (n=22) of all mortality events. Conclusion Evidence from this study suggests that community-based rather than provincial-based injury reporting is less likely to over-generalise the burden of injury among Aboriginal communities. Community-based surveillance enables researchers to identify why severe unintentional and intentional injury continues to burden some communities but not others and avoids the potentially demoralising and stigmatising effects of current surveillance practices. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bell, Nathaniel Schuurman, Nadine Hameed, S Morad Caron, Nadine |
spellingShingle |
Bell, Nathaniel Schuurman, Nadine Hameed, S Morad Caron, Nadine Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 |
author_facet |
Bell, Nathaniel Schuurman, Nadine Hameed, S Morad Caron, Nadine |
author_sort |
Bell, Nathaniel |
title |
Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 |
title_short |
Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 |
title_full |
Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 |
title_fullStr |
Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? Variability in severe injuries on First Nations reserves in British Columbia, 2001–5 |
title_sort |
are we homogenising risk factors for public health surveillance? variability in severe injuries on first nations reserves in british columbia, 2001–5 |
publisher |
BMJ |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 https://syndication.highwire.org/content/doi/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 |
genre |
First Nations |
genre_facet |
First Nations |
op_source |
Injury Prevention volume 17, issue 6, page 394-400 ISSN 1353-8047 1475-5785 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1136/ip.2010.030866 |
container_title |
Injury Prevention |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
394 |
op_container_end_page |
400 |
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1802644267379720192 |