Drowning is the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury death in Los Angeles County. We examined data collected by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office on drownings that occurred in the county from 1976 through 1984. There were 1587 drownings (1130 males and 457 females) during this nine-year period, for an annual rate of 2.36 drownings per 100,000 persons (3.44 for males and 1.33 for females). The largest proportion of drownings (44.5%) for both sexes, and in almost every age group, occurred in private swimming pools. Children 2 to 3 years of age had the highest swimming-pool drowning rate (7.95). The elderly also experienced high drowning rates, primarily in swimming pools and bathtubs. Drowning-site profiles varied dramatically by age and sex. These findings indicate a need for Los Angeles County to address the problem of drownings among infants and toddlers in private swimming pools and to investigate the failure of regulations requiring fencing of swimming pools to prevent these deaths. These findings also suggest several potential opportunities for preventive intervention by physicians and demonstrate that health professionals cannot rely on national drowning-site profiles when developing local drowning prevention strategies.
Introduction:Recently, there has been speculation that suicide rates increase after a disaster. Yet, in spite of anecdotal reports, it is difficult to demonstrate a systematic relationship between suicide and disaster. Suicides are fairly rare events, and single disasters rarely have covered geographic areas with large enough populations to be able to find statistically significant differences in such relatively rare events (annual suicide rates in the United States average 12/100,000 population).Hypothesis:Suicide rates increased in the three calendar years (1994–1996) following the Northridge earthquake as compared to the three calendar years (1991–1993) prior to the earthquake. Likewise the suicide rates for 1993 are compared with the rates in 1994. By looking at the suicide rates in a three-year period after the earthquake, the additional disasters that befell Southern California in 1995 and 1996 may have had an additive effect on psychological disorders and suicide rates that can be measured.Methods:Data on suicide mortality were compiled for the years from 1989 through 1996. Differences in rates for 1993 compared with 1994 and for three-year periods before and after the earthquake (1991–1993 vs. 1994 –1996) were analyzed using az-statistic.Results:There is a statistically significant difference in the rates for the years prior to the earthquake (1991–1993) when pooled and compared to the suicide rates for the years after the earthquake (1994–1996). The rates of suicide are lower in the three years following the earthquake (11.85 vs. 13.12/100,000 population) than they are in the three years prior to the earthquake (z= -3.85,p<0.05). Likewise, there is a similar difference when comparing 1993 to 1994 (11.77 vs. 13.84,z= -3.57,p<0.05). The patterns of suicide remain similar over time, with males and non-Hispanic Whites having the highest rates of suicide.Conclusion:It does not appear that suicide rates increase as a result of earthquakes in this setting. This study demonstrates that the psychological impacts of the Northridge earthquake did not culminate in an increase in the rates of suicide.
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