Injuries in children by age group and sex

In Scotland there were 26 deaths in 2006 and 9,564 emergency admissions in year ending March 2007 due to unintentional injury in children under the age of 15 (table 1 & table 2). However, most unintentional injuries result neither in death nor in hospital admission but are treated by GPs or as outpatients in Accident & Emergency departments, or by the child's parent or carer.

Figure 1, shows that in all age groups, boys are more likely than girls to be admitted to hospital owing to unintentional injury. The total number of emergency admissions for year ending March 2007 shows 5,979 male admissions compared with 3,585 female admissions.  Please note that the denominator for the rates in the chart are based on the populations in each sex and age group.

^{Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes.}

In both sexes, the most common cause of emergency admission for injury is falls. Boys are almost twice as likely as girls to be admitted to hospital because of unintentional injury due to a Road Traffic Accident (RTA). This is more evident in younger children (aged 1-9) with 219 male emergency admissions compared with 103 female admissions (table 3).  RTAs are also the most common cause of death from an unintentional injury.  They account for over half of childhood deaths in 2006 (table 4).