Jennie Oxley

What is the 'dark figure' of child homicide and how can it be addressed in Australia?

Child injury, regardless of intent, is a major public health issue in Australia and elsewhere. Child protection and injury prevention policies and practices are implemented in most countries in an attempt to manage and reduce the incidence of both intentional and unintentional injuries. While these systems are thought to assist in improving protection from violence, injury and neglect, one of the major limitations in understanding the effectiveness of child protection policy in Australia is a lack of reliable national data on child abuse and neglect. As a result there is a lack of an appropriate evidence base on which to guide the development of effective policies. A particular area where official figures may under-represent the true prevalence of child deaths is those which result from homicide. This article provides a review of the recent literature on child homicide, abuse and neglect, with the overall aim of understanding more fully the reasons for the possible under-representation of child homicides and provides recommendations to address this problem in Australia. Improvements in methods of identifying at risk children in addition to systematic investigations of child deaths to understand the risk factors and underlying contributing factors are required.

Fatal cyclist crashes in Australia

Abstract Objectives: The number of casualty road crashes in Australia has steadily reduced over the past few decades; however, a concurrent reduction has not been achieved for crashes involving cyclists. This has resulted in a disproportionate overrepresentation of cyclists in fatal injury statistics. This article explores the contributing factors and injury mechanisms among coronial reported fatal cyclist crashes in Australia. Methods: The National Coronial Information System (NCIS) is a remote data entry and retrieval system containing detailed coronial information managed by the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation. All coroner-reported closed cases involving a cyclist fatality in Australia from 2006 to 2015 were extracted from the database. In total, 336 cases in the NCIS database involving a cyclist fatality that occurred within the road reserve throughout Australia were identified and extracted for analysis. Variables in the analyses included age, gender, mechanism of injury, medical cause of death, time of incident, modes of transport involved, speed limit, road geometry, police narratives, and toxicology reports. The NCIS data were supplemented with spatial information using the geographic coordinates of the crash. Geographic information was utilized to gather information regarding various location characteristics such as speed limits and road geometry. Descriptive analysis techniques were performed on the data to examine key variables. Analyses also included cross-tabulation and Pearson’s chi-squared tests (χ2) for comparison of variables collected. All analyses were undertaken at a level of significance (α) of .05. Effect size was assessed using Cramer’s V statistic (φc). Results: The majority of fatal outcome crashes occurred in New South Wales (27.4%), followed by Victoria (25.9%) and Queensland (22.0%), and the majority involved male cyclists aged between 35 and 64 years. Those aged between 18 and 34 years were the next most frequent group of fatally injured cyclists. Helmet use was reported in 62.2% of cases. When reported, 19.6% of cyclists were not wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The presence of alcohol was detected in 14.6% of postmortem examinations and illicit drugs including tetrahydrocannabinol, opioids, and methamphetamine were identified in 17.6% of cases. Analysis of the road characteristics identified a relatively even split between crashes that occurred in low speed environments (60 km/h and below; 51.2%) and higher speed environments (48.8%). Crash counterparts commonly involved light vehicles (31.3%) and heavy vehicles (38.4%), with approximately one quarter (23.8%) being single-vehicle crashes (i.e., bicycle only). Analyses of injury information identified that cyclists most commonly sustained multiple injuries (38.8%). Injuries to the head (31.3%), chest (4.8%), neck (3.4%), and brain (2.0%) were also commonly reported. Conclusions: The findings provide insight into key contributing factors and injury characteristics of fatal cyclist crashes in Australia and can inform and guide the development of effective infrastructure designs and strategies to reduce cyclist trauma.

Injuries in Adolescents: The Public Health Response

This chapter reviews all causes of fatal injury in adolescents (10–19 years of age) in the context of other causes of death, both globally and regionally. It also reviews nonfatal injury causes to the extent that currently available data allow and explores issues of data limitations. The public health response to fatal and nonfatal injury in adolescents is discussed within current theoretical approaches and proven effective interventions. While an overview of all adolescent injury is provided, the main focus is on unintentional injury. Case studies are presented for several existing and emerging injury problems during adolescence, and the public health response.

Validation of a bicycle simulator for road safety research

The studys aim was to assess the behavioural validity of participants using of a newly developed bicycle simulator with respect to a range of cycling performance measures collected both using the cycling simulator and on-road. The validation study consisted of a within-subjects study design comparing participants riding on-road with riding in the simulator. The study recruited 26 participants ranging in age from 18 to 35 years (M=25.0, SD=4.8). Absolute validity was established for measures of spatial positioning including average lane position, deviation in lane position and average passing distance from kerbside parked cars. Relative validity was established for the average speed of cyclists and their speed reduction on approach to intersections and a degree of validity was established for aspects of the participants head movements on approach to intersections. The study found evidence to suggest that aspects of cyclist behaviour can be investigated using the bicycle simulator, however further validation research may be required in order to more comprehensively validate looking behaviours, more complex performance measures and for a wider age range of cyclists.