Injury is a leading cause of death and disability in young people in Australia.
Young people are over-represented in injury statistics compared with other age groups.
Injuries to young males are more frequent and more severe than for females.
Transport crashes are the most common cause of injury deaths in young people.
Injuries limit future activities and choices – the consequences are often life long.
Many of the deaths and injuries amongst young people are preventable.
So youth injury really is a big problem?
- Unintentional injury is the biggest single cause of death for young people - in NSW unintentional injury accounted accounts for more than 150 deaths each year.
- The number of young people hospitalised for unintentional injury is also very high with more than 20,000 young people treated in hospital because of unintentional injury.
- More than $65 million is spent each year in NSW on medical and health services for unintentional injury among 15 to 24 year olds - and when you add on other costs, such as long term care, loss of income and loss of quality of life, annual expenditure is estimated to be over $718,000,000.
- Young people aged 15 to 24 years make up over 13% of all injury deaths and 15% of all hospitalisations for injury.
- No matter which way you look at it youth injury really is a big problem.
How do young people get injured?
- Injury in young people is most likely to happen while they are travelling, particularly by road – in 2010 in NSW 97 young people aged 15 to 24 years died in road crashes and a further 5,803 were injured.
- Young drivers are over represented in all fatal crashes, including drink driving and fatigue.
- Some of the stats are quite alarming, for instance young drivers in NSW despite making up only 15% of drivers, young drivers represent around 36% of annual road fatalities.
Download: Transport injury fact sheet
- Young people are also injured in the workplace, especially young people working as labourers or in trades. Between 2002/3-2004/5 17 young people aged 15 to 24 years died in NSW due to injuries in the workplace. In addition 17,798 were injured at work, with 2,917 young people experiencing permanent injuries.
Download: Work related injury fact sheet
- Sports can also lead to injury in young people – in 1998/99 in NSW 2,718 young people finished up in hospital with sports related injuries.
Download: Sports related injury fact sheet
What sort of injuries do you find among young people?
Young people’s injuries can be relatively minor, such as soft tissue sprains and strains, which are common in activities such as sports. However young people can also sustain really serious injuries, such as brain injury and spinal injury, which is more common in road crashes. It is the more serious injuries that are of greater concern to Youthsafe as they can result in lifetime disability or death.
15 to 19 year old males are the group most at risk of suffering traumatic brain injury. The rate of injury for this group is 399 per 100,000 population compared to a rate of 189 per 100,000 population for the community as a whole.
15 to 24 year olds have the highest age specific rate of spinal cord injury with young men more likely to be injured than young women - the ratio of male to female injury in this age group is 9 to 1.
Other serious injuries may include limb amputations, serious bone fractures or injuries to internal organs. These can also lead to lifelong disability or be life threatening.
Why is the risk of injury in young people so high?
There are a number of factors which combine to put young people at greater risk of injury than other age groups. Risks associated with being young include:
- New levels of independence - young people generally start being more mobile during adolescence and have less adult supervision.
- Inexperience with new situations, which may require developing new skills, such as driving.
- Inexperience with alcohol and experimentation with alcohol and drugs.
- Still developing maturity, hazard perception and decision making skills – the area of the brain related to these function is generally still developing in young people into their 20s.
- Peer pressure – at no time is the influence of peers greater than it is in adolescence. We know that young people are often motivated by the short term gain of impressing their mates over the longer term concerns of health and safety.
- Risk taking tendencies - thrill seeking behaviours are part of normal adolescent development.
- Overconfidence in own ability and a sense of invulnerability
- Young people commonly believe that they are better drivers than their peers and that nothing bad will happen to them. As a result, they are more likely to take dangerous risks.
To find out more about road-related illusory invulnerability and techniques to help young people avoid it, take a look at the “Recognising risks and driving safely” brochure produced by the NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre.
So what can be done to prevent injury in young people?
Everyone has a role in youth injury prevention – young people themselves, parents and families, professionals working with young people, key decisions makers and all of us in the community.
Youthsafe was especially established with a mission of ‘preventing serious injury in young people’, the only organisation of its kind in Australia, and we work to support everyone who has a role in youth injury prevention. To find out more about Youthsafe, our initiatives, our resources and publications and what you can do about preventing youth injury check out the rest of our website.
Our data has been sourced from:
- IRMRC University of NSW, 2005
- RTA NSW, 2005
- NOSI Database, NOHSC, 2005