Deprivation and road traffic injury comparisons for 4–10 and 11–15 year-olds

Abstract

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are at an increased risk of being killed or seriously injured (KSI) in a road collision compared to their peers from less disadvantaged areas. However, understanding of the risk of being KSI in a road collision across childhood, gender, level of deprivation, exposure, and mode of transport is not routinely investigated. The present research therefore compared the number of 4–10 year-olds and 11–15 year-olds KSI road casualties during 2016 across deprivation quintiles and gender to gain a greater understanding of road traffic injury risk across childhood. Using police reported data for England in 2016 the number of children KSI as pedestrians, cyclists and car occupants was examined per 100,000 of the population. Children 4–10 years-old and 11–15 years-old residing in the most deprived areas were nearly three times more likely to be KSI as pedestrians than their peers in the least deprived areas. The inequality in injury risk as cyclists and car occupant's increased for males as they progressed towards adolescence. This relationship remained even when exposure to the roads was taken into account. Differential patterns of risk are therefore apparent across childhood as well as gender and transport mode, with those in the most deprived areas facing the greatest risk of being KSI on the roads.