Related resources
Search for item elsewhere
University researcher(s)
Academic department(s)
Defining the Epidemiology of Severe Burn Injury in Greater Manchester
[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2012.
Access to files
-
FULL-TEXT.PDF (pdf)
Abstract
Burn injuries are one of the most painful and potentially debilitating traumatic injuries that a person can suffer. Every reader is likely to have, at some point in their life, suffered a burn injury, no matter how minor and therefore can have some comprehension of the pain and suffering associated with significant burn injury. Traumatic injury is the leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults. Although much has been done to optimise pre-hospital care and emergent treatment of injuries in recent times, the mainstay of managing death and disability from traumatic injury must lie in preventing these injuries where at all possible. To enable effective preventative strategies to be put in place it is important to define the demographics of those injured and the mechanisms of injury for any given population. Only then can we ensure that strategies are targeted in the areas where they are most needed at the mechanisms that are occurring most commonly.This study has combined a number of data sources namely burns service, fire service, coroners’ service and accident and emergency department in an attempt to define the epidemiology and aetiology of burn injury in Greater Manchester. Data from the different sources was pooled and underwent a process of data-linkage to remove duplicate records. Rates have been calculated and compared according to age group, sex group and deprivation status. Poisson regression modelling was used to calculate the rate ratios amongst the different groups. Postcode data was used to allow geographical mapping of injuries across the county to allow rates to be calculated for different areas of the city. Where rates have been calculated for small area geographies Bayesian modelling was used to predict injury rates for those areas. Maps have been produced that show the areas with the highest rates of injury.The results show that in children it is the under five age group that have the highest rates of injury, particularly the under 2’s. In adults, those over 75 years of age have the highest rates of injury. For all age groups males were more likely to be injured than females. In both children and adults higher rates of injury were seen in those areas where there were increased levels of deprivation. Key mechanisms of injury for individual age groups have been highlighted. The maps of Greater Manchester and its constituent local authorities show those areas with the highest rates of injury.The definition of target demographic groups and geographical areas within Greater Manchester will be used to allow development of targeted prevention strategies in those areas.