In the last post, I introduced the NEISS data and gave a few general figures. Here, I thought I would go more deeply into the numbers to see if any interesting patterns jump out.
[To be specific, I'm looking at hospital-treated playground injuries reported to NEISS from 2000-2009 for injuries incurred on Monkey Bars, Playground Gyms and other Playground Climbing Apparatus; Seesaws or Teeterboards; Slides or Sliding Boards (excluding swimming pool and ground water slides; Swings or Swing sets (excluding portable baby swings); and Other Playground Equipment]
So, what does the data tell us?
Boys incur more injuries (53-54%) than girls (46-47%). This seems to make sense given that playground-age boys are a rambunctious bunch, but it could just be the case that boys play more on the equipment, and are therefore more likely to be hurt on it.
Ages five and six are the most injury-prone years. A density curve of injury by age reveals a right-tailed bell curve, meaning that while very few 1- and 2-year-olds are hurt, lots of kids aged 3-9 are hurt, and then it tails off into the mid-teens (although about there were about ten 18 year olds hurt each year from 2000-2007, with that figure rising to 20 and 22 in 2008 and 2009, respectively... two questions: why the sudden rise, and what are 18 year olds even doing on a playground?!). Given an age range of 1-18, over half of all injuries each year are incurred by children aged 4-7.
Monkey bars and other climbing apparatuses (apparatii?) account for a consistent 40% of all injuries (with a dip to 38% in 2009), with slides and sliding boards holding steady at about 23%, although with a slight rise over the decade. Interestingly, the share of injuries to due "other playground equipment" fell quite significantly throughout the decade, from about 33% to 27%.
Next up: digging deeper, and fun with regressions.
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