Unintentional injuries in childhood: Results from Canadian Health Surveys

The principal goal of this report is to describe what has been learned about childhood injuries from recent Canadian health surveys. Four national population based surveys have been analysed to this end – the General Social Survey (GSS), the National Population Health Survey (NPHS), the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), and the Health Promotion Survey (HPS). Information from these studies is analysed to permit a description of the characteristics of the children who are injured and the circumstances of their injuries. A secondary goal is to obtain some further details about possible risk factors. The ultimate objective, of course, is for these data to help inform policies and programs aimed at prevention. Finally, we hope that these analyses will underscore some of the shortcomings in how these surveys deal with the problem of injuries so that these limitations can be overcome in the future.