Somatic development of the child and injury incidence during the pubertal spurt – new knowledge of the correlation between growth Somatic development of the child and injury incidence during the pubertal spurt – new knowledge of the correlation between growth dynamics and injury risk in the present population of children
Abstract
Injuries and their consequences pose serious health, social and economic concerns. Based on the data of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (IHIS), the overall child injury incidence rate increased year over year by 0.7% and the number of fractures rose year over year by 1.3% in the Czech Republic in 2000–2005.
In comparison with the previous decade, the child injury incidence rate increased by 8% and the fracture incidence rate per 100,000 children was nearly 10% as high. In 2006–2009, a downward trend in the injury incidence was observed (394 thousand injuries on average were reported annually in children 0–14 years of age, i.e. 266 injuries per 1000 children per year) [1].
In children under 15 years of age, fractures account for about 25% of the overall injury incidence on a long-term basis. During the pubertal spurt, fracture is the leading cause of injury.
The usefulness and benefit of the new data from the semi-longitudinal study of somatic development and injury incidence in school children are discussed and a close association is reported between the growth profile and injury incidence in early adolescence. The new data contribute to a new insight into the higher injury risk during the pubertal spurt.
The data from the semi-longitudinal survey could be considerably helpful in pediatric and pedagogical practice for solving the current tasks in child injury prevention, for identifying the effective child injury prevention strategies to be implemented in primary schools and thus for significantly reducing the injury incidence in the present population of school children.