TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2005//
TI  - E department: the importance of an epidemiological approach
JO  - Public health
A1  - Chishti, Parveen
A1  - Brown, C. E.
A1  - Stone, David H.
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N2  - OBJECTIVES: To contrast the socio-economic pattern of childhood injuries presenting to a pediatric accident and emergency (A&E) department revealed by using both a numerator-based and a denominator-based approach to the analysis of injury surveillance data. METHODS: Injury surveillance data collected during 1997-1998 at a Glasgow children's hospital A&E department were analysed. Socio-economic status was measured using Carstairs' deprivation index. Data from West Glasgow postcode sectors only were analysed in order to optimize epidemiological validity. Socio-economic patterning of injury was investigated in two ways-numerator-based and denominator-based. RESULTS: A total of 12,762 children (0-14 years) living in West Glasgow attended the A&E department of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children over the study period. Both analytical approaches showed a clear and statistically significant excess of injury presentations in children from more deprived postcode sectors, but the variation appeared much greater in the numerator-based rather than the denominator-based approach. In regression analysis, however, only the denominator-derived rates showed a statistically significant linear trend across deprivation categories. CONCLUSION: The most appropriate and accurate means of measuring the extent of socio-economic (and other) inequalities in injury risk is to adopt a population-based rather than numerator-based perspective on the data collected by injury surveillance systems.
LA  - 
SN  - 0033-3506
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2004.10.009
ID  - ref1
ER  -