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Letter: Children's bicycle safety education does not reduce injuries
Author(s) -
Voukelatos Alexander,
Khan Sufia
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
health promotion journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 2201-1617
pISSN - 1036-1073
DOI - 10.1071/he10152
Subject(s) - cycling , medicine , injury prevention , occupational safety and health , population health , poison control , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , gerontology , environmental health , physical therapy , population , geography , pathology , archaeology
Learning to ride a bicycle is a common and joyful experience of childhood (up to 68% of children reported riding a bicycle in a two‐week period) that has many health benefits. However, children have the highest bicycle‐related injury rates compared to other age groups. In NSW, bicycle injury‐related hospitalisations in people aged 5–14 years account for approximately half of all bicycle injury‐related hospitalisations. A typical bicycle education program for children will involve a one‐session program focusing on safe cycling information, with some time allocated to practising safe cycling skills. However, these programs have not been well documented or evaluated. We conducted a pilot study investigating the effectiveness of a bicycle education program in increasing safe cycling knowledge and behaviour in the Macarthur area of south‐west Sydney.