Article reviewed: "The role of the physical and traffic environment in child pedestrian injuries." Pediatrics, Vol. 98, No. 6. December, 1996.
Critical Review
Student Name: Julia PU
Student No.: 30646723
Tutor’s name: Dr Alan Jones
Article reviewed: “The role of the physical and traffic environment in child pedestrian injuries.” Pediatrics, Vol. 98, No. 6. December, 1996.
Date of submission: Friday October 13th, 2000.
Agran, Phyllis F.; Diane G. Winn; Craig L. Anderson; Cecile Tran; Celeste P. Del Valle. “The role of the physical and traffic environment in child pedestrian injuries.” Pediatrics, Vol. 98, No. 6. December, 1996.
Pedestrian injuries have always be a dominant threaten to parents as it would result in severe injury or death among younger children. Increasing, it has became not only a issue that concerns our community, but a important topic that gains large number of attention from the whole society. Scientist, phycologist and educators have put a great deal of effort on academic research in order to investigate the major causes of pedestrian injuries, and so that different approaches can be used to prevent childhood pedestrian injuries. While previous studies have focused on vehicle speed and traffic volume which associated with greater injury incidence, a group of scientists (including Phyllis F. Agran, Diane G. Winn, Craig L. Anderson, Cecile Tran and Celeste P. Del Valle) designed a case-control study for Latino children in southern California aged between 1 to 14 years old. The purpose of this study is to identify environmental risk factors on residential neighbourhood streets for paediatric injuries. Factors which were taken into account embrace the number parked vehicle on road, pedestrian presents, car speed and traffic volume. Although this study provides a very detailed and valued information on childhood pedestrian injuries, it is limited to the investigation on the cases occurring on the street in front of the child’s residence which would not be appropriate to represent the overall condition in neighbourhood.