Citation

Forjuoh SN. Int. J. Inj. Control Safe. Promot. 2019; 26(2): 127-128.

Affiliation

Department of Family & Community Medicine, Baylor Scott & White Health , Texas A&M HSC College of Medicine , 1402 West Ave H , Temple , TX 76504 , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17457300.2019.1607170

PMID

31012374

Abstract

While several proven injury interventions or successful safety devices, such as seat belt, are available in the field of injury prevention, their application for protection is not being used universally. Occupant seat belt use on a university campus in Ghana was researched by Ojo & Agyemang (2018 Ojo, T. K., & Agyemang, W. (2018). Occupants’ seatbelt use are related to vehicle type and usage on a Ghanaian university campus. International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. doi:10.1080/17457300.2018.1515230) in the current issue of the Journal. The authors conducted an unobtrusive observational survey of seat belt use by vehicle occupants entering and exiting the university campus over a 4-hour window period on five weekdays. The overall seat belt use was observed to be 31.6%, but varied tremendously by practically every variable assessed. Along with the uncovered low seat belt use rate, there was marked variation by gender, age group, vehicle type, and occupant type. Additionally, seat belt use varied by occupant position in the vehicle, with front passengers having the highest usage rate.

Other studies have shown the disparity of seat belt use by race/ethnicity (Wells, Williams, & Farmer, 2002 Wells, J. K., Williams, A. F., & Farmer, C. M. (2002). Seat belt use among African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 34(4), 523–529. doi:10.1016/S0001-4575(01)00050-1). In particular, seat belt use continues to be lower among non-Hispanic African Americans than other race and ethnic groups among passenger vehicle occupants ages 25–69 years traveling with children in the United States as reported in a 2008 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration survey. Marked disparity in seat belt use rates also exists between high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) according to the World Health Organization Global Health Observatory resources. Similar trends have been found with other successful safety devices such as helmet use and smoke alarm installation in homes.

Helmet use is one successful safety device that has been found to vary by several variables. Forjuoh et al. (2002 Forjuoh, S. N., Fiesinger, T., Schuchmann, J. A., & Mason, S. (2002). Helmet use: a survey of 4 common childhood leisure activities. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 156(7), 656–661. doi:10.1001/archpedi.156.7.656) investigated helmet use rate in 4 common childhood leisure activities. The rate of overall helmet use was 13.6% and did not vary significantly by activity ...

Language: en