Farms and Kids Safety - What are the issues?

A/Prof Tony Lower

August 15, 2014

Sydney Medical School

2

The Issue

3

Work & Life

Farm Non-Intentional Fatalities 2001-2010

16.10%

83.90%

All Fatalities (n=739)*

0 -14 Years15+ Years

n =119

n = 620

* Denotes provisional data

4

Age Distribution

5

Fatal Injuries to Children 2001 - 2010

14.2%

85.8%

Gender 0-14 Years (n=119)

FemaleMale

n =17

n = 102

6

Child Fatalities by State 2001- 2010

NSW NT QLD SA TAS VIC WA0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

7

Age-Group by State

AGE NSW NT QLD SA TAS VIC WA TOTAL

0-4 19 2 20 3 3 10 6 63

5-9 6 0 8 2 3 5 2 26

10-14 6 2 10 2 2 6 2 30

TOTAL 31 4 38 7 8 21 10 119

National & Victorian Data

NATIONAL (n=119)

No. cases % total

› Drowning 47 40%

› Quads 15 13%

› Motorcycles 6 5%

› Horses 5 5%

› Tractors 5 5%

› Farm Vehicles 16 13%

(Car, ute, truck, other)

VICTORIA (n=21)

No. cases % total

› Drowning 9 43%

› Quads 4 19%

› Motorcycles 2 9%

› Horses 2 9%

› Car, dairy plant, trees, field bin (all 1 case each)

8

Hazards by Age

0-4 5-9 10-14 TOTAL

Drowning 31 10 6 47

Quads 5 3 7 15

9

Police Report

Deceased child (1 yr) drowned in a nearby dam of the family home. Family friends with young children were staying over. After both families returning from shopping in XXXX. The children went to the rear of the residence and started to play around the trampoline and other play equipment.

After 5 - 10 minutes of being back at YYYY it was noticed that the deceased child was not with the other children. All adults started searching for the deceased child. Deceased located approximately 1 metre from the bank in knee deep water. There were no dividing fences preventing the deceased child from accessing the dam.

10

Age by Farm Vehicles + Tractors

Car Ute Truck Other / Unknown

Tractor

0-4 4 3 2 1 5

5-9 1

10-14 4 1

Police Report

At approximately 10:00am, XXXX told the girls that he was going to move his utility and that they were to stay where they were and not move. At this time “L” (4 yr) was standing behind a gate in full view of XXXX and “L” rode away on her bike in the opposite direction. XXXX drove away to a location where he was to remove wire from the rear of the utility.

Unbeknown to him, “L” had turned her bike around and had begun “chasing” him. He began to reverse the utility when he felt the rear wheel travel over something. Not knowing what it was, he drove forward and got out of the vehicle to investigate. It was at this time that XXXX found “L” unresponsive and injured behind the utility.

Are things improving?

1990 2 4 6 8

2010 12 14

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Total

Media Data Only 2011 +

11

Child farm injury deaths 2001-2014

Are things improving?

1990 2 4 6 8

2010 12 14

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

DrowningQuadsTotal

Media Data Only 2011 +

12

Morbidity

› We lack good robust national data on farm-related morbidity.

› Many of the same agents are responsible for non-fatal injuries - motorcycles, horses, quads etc

› VISU data

13

Safe Play Areas

› A key evidence-based recommendation from Farmsafe Australia’s Child Safety on Farms Program was:

- For farm families to have a securely fenced house yard to help prevent unsupervised access to farm hazards such as dams and farm vehicles; and ensure young children stay in this safe play area unless an adult is available to take them out and closely supervise them.

14

A Lesson from the USA

› “ATVs remain the most dangerous discretionary use product for children within CPSC’s jurisdiction. In the past three decades, at least 2,775 children under the age of sixteen have died in ATV-related accidents and at least 807,000 were treated in emergency rooms for injuries resulting from ATVs. Sadly, these numbers continue to grow.”

Reference: Commissioner Robert Adler; US Consumer Product Safety Commission, (Feb 14, 2012).

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Evidence Based Prevention Approaches

› Drowning (<5 years) - Safe Play Areas (secure) & supervision

› Quads - no kids riding quads, no passengers

› Farm vehicles - not in ute tray / seat belts / slow vehicle runovers

› Motorcycles - helmets worn / PPE

› Horses - helmets worn

These five alone address 70-80% of burden

16

Prevention Approaches : Victoria 2001-10

1. Drowning 9

2. Quads 3

3. Car 1

4. Motorcycles 2

5. Horses 2

6. Other 4

TOTAL 21

Safe Play Area (7), pool fence (1) 8

No kids 3

Seat belt (1) 1

Unlikely to be prevented (2) -

Insufficient information available (2) -

Unlikely to be prevented (3), no info (1) -

TOTAL 12

Major Killers No. Preventable Deaths? No.

Note: Only six out of 21 cases were unlikely to have some capacity to be prevented and/or severity limited if existing evidence based approaches were used.