Determinants of U.S. poison center utilization

Abstract

Strategies to raise penetrance should be informed by an understanding of the barriers to utilization - language, Black/African American race, distance from the poison center, poverty, and lower education levels.

Factors that trigger emergency physicians to contact a poison centre: findings from a Swiss study

“…Moreover, the amount of substance ingested was not taken into account despite the fact that this might influence poison centre consultation behaviour. Economic, structural and social factors within the population were not taken into consideration 12. Nevertheless, these factors are believed to influence our results only minimally given the relatively uniform population profile in the small areas covered by our study.…”

Calls to the British Columbia Drug and Poison Information Centre: A summary of differences by health service areas

“…The province-wide crude human exposure case rate was 5.4 per 1,000 person-years for 2012-2013 and the regional rates ranged from 2.6 to 8.7. These were slightly lower than corresponding non-standardized rates at 52 US poison centres in 2001, which ranged from 4.8 to 17.1 cases per 1,000 person-years [24], with a mean of 8.1 cases per 1,000 population in 2001 and 7.2 in 2012 [25]. Our results showing lower rates in the predominantly urban HSDAs of Vancouver, Richmond, and Fraser South compared with the predominantly rural HSDAs in the north and east of the province highlight the need for this kind of analysis.…”

“…A challenge with interpreting case rates from PCC data is assessing the extent to which rates reflect true poisoning incidence rather than PCC awareness and use [24], but previous studies suggest that our results reflect true regional differences. Regional variation in standardized mortality ratios and rates of hospital separations (deaths and discharges) for unintentional injuries have been shown among children and youth [27] and adults and seniors [28], with rural health regions tending to have higher rates than urban regions.…”

A 3-year survey of acute poisoning exposures in infants reported in telephone calls made to the Tygerberg Poison Information Centre, South Africa

“…One reason may be that people can only call a poison information centre if they know that one exists! [13] The Western Cape has two poison centres. Both KwaZuluNatal and Gauteng once had poison centres which have now closed.…”