Purpose: The United States has no comprehensive national surveillance system for fatal or nonfatal child agricultural injuries. Thus, important knowledge gaps exist about recurrent injury patterns that could provide targeted focus for prevention efforts. The purpose of this study was to explore existing US public health data systems to determine their utility with respect to informing child agricultural injury surveillance and primary prevention.
Methods: Public health data systems were selected if they: (1) were national in scope, (2) were active and ongoing, (3) included physical injuries, and (4) contained a "farm" location variable. Data systems explored included National Emergency Medical Services Information System, National Trauma Data Bank, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program, and National Vital Statistics System-Multiple Cause File.
Findings: Each data system contained substantial information per case with the number of fields ranging from 77 to 127. Beyond basic demographic information about the injured child, there were many injury descriptors, but few commonalities across systems. The most striking finding was the uniform absence of information on injury circumstances; that is, why and how the injury occurred, which is fundamental to planning and evaluating prevention initiatives.
Conclusions: Although these public health data systems captured many details regarding medical aspects of the injury, they included little information on circumstances leading to injury, thus limiting their utility for child agricultural injury surveillance and primary prevention initiatives. We recommend any child agricultural injury data collection tool formally incorporate a structured narrative so underlying circumstances leading to injury events are documented.
Keywords: accidents; child/adolescent injury; farm injury; public health surveillance.
© 2018 National Rural Health Association.