Social patterns of road accidents to children: Some characteristics of vulnerable families

Abstract

In the investigation of some of the newer health problems - of which road accidents is an example - there is a need for studies which lie between the large scale epidemiological survey and the small sociological inquiry. Such family studies are likely to find a place in the investigation of associations between ill health and personal habits, diet, maternal care, leisure pursuits, etc. For a variety of reasons they must rely upon the use of unsophisticated measures and techniques, and are thus only a prelude to further and more methodologically exact social- medical injury. Their findings often serve merely to confirm what might be guessed at by any reasonable observer. This study of 101 families in which a healthy child has survived a road accident suggests that their vulnerability was associated with one or more of the following characteristics (shown significantly less often by a matched control series): there was illness, either maternal or elsewhere in the household, and more serious illness; there was maternal preoccupation of some kind - for example, with outside work, with other children, or with pregnancy. The vulnerable family was more crowded, and it did not provide protection during play or even elementary play facilities. Overlapping of these factors was small in amount and family and maternal illness, preoccupation of mother, play facilities, and protection during play appear to be independent and important. Crowding (though significantly associated with accidents) appeared less important and less likely than other factors to be directly associated with accidents. Sibship size, birth rank, spacing, and age structure of family did not distinguish significantly between accident and control, nor did the intelligence of the index child or a history of other accidents in the family. The associations described were stronger with the younger index children. A rating of local schools suggested that accident children are to be found more often than might be expected among schools where parental standards are said to be generally rather low.