Impact of a Celebrity Death on Children’s Injury-related Emergency Room Visits

Abstract

he mass media may have both positive and negative effects on health and health care delivery. Health education campaigns delivered by the media influence the health of the population either by increasing knowledge, changing behaviour, or both. 1 In other contexts, the media in general and TV in particular have been shown to affect the psychological and physical wellbeing of children, especially with respect to obesity. 2,3 Media reporting of celebrities' health issues may also affect the public, but not always in predictable ways. On the one hand, when a famous person reveals they have a certain type of cancer, there is often an increase in demand for screening. 4-9 The same effect follows when celebrities are enlisted to promote screening for a particular disease. 8,9 On the other hand, reported suicides by public figures have been followed by copycat suicides, with one study reporting increases as high as 44%. 10-13 In Quebec, the suicide of Gaetan Girouard-a well-known television journalist-was followed by a similarly striking rise. 14 It is surprising, however, that there have been no published reports of a celebrity health event prompting visits to Emergency Rooms (ER) when the event is an injury. In light of this, we documented the apparent effect of the extensive news coverage of the death of actor Nathalie Richardson. Following her fatal head injury on a ski hill in Quebec, Google News found over 1,100 mentions in the international press over a two-month period (Google News: http://news.google.com). In Montreal alone, 47 articles appeared in the main newspapers, The Gazette, La Presse and Le Devoir. Consequently, we postulated that the media interest in this event was responsible for the large increase in ER visits to the Montreal Children's Hospital (MCH) during the following week. To examine this hypothesis, we plotted the number of visits before and after the event and tested whether the increase was statistically significant. A second hypothesis was that because the celebrity in this case appeared predominantly on English stage and screen, this would prompt more coverage by English than French media and thus result in a smaller increase in ER visits at the French children's hospital in Montreal than at the MCH. Our final hypothesis was that the media's interest would diminish with distance from Quebec, yielding less noteworthy increases in ER attendances at children's hospitals in other provinces. METHODS We used current data from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP). This is a computerized information system that collects and analyzes data on all injured children seen at all 10 paediatric hospitals in Canada. (The Program now also obtains similar data at 4 general hospitals.) 15 When a child presents to the ER of a participating hospital, the accompanying caregiver is asked to complete a brief questionnaire describing the circumstances surrounding the event and coordinators or medical staff provide information about the type of injury, nature, body part, and disposi...

Feature-specific terrain park-injury rates and risk factors in snowboarders: a case–control study

“…Only age-group and sex of the uninjured controls could be assessed for accuracy and our observations were found to be valid. There was potential for misclassification of severe injury because factors other than severity could predict presentation to the ED, such as parental fear or anxiety influenced by a recent celebrity skiing death 39. It was unknown if non-consenting injured snowboarders presented to a non-study ED and were incorrectly classified as a minor injury.…”

An evidence-based review

“…26 There is at least one study available which showed a 60% increase in the pediatric injury visits to the emergency room during the week following the death of Natasha Richardson in Canada. 53 Also, 15% of neurosurgeons in various European countries bought a ski helmet after the German politician's slope incident mentioned earlier. 26 …”

“…Google News found > 1,100 mentions of Natasha Richardson's death in international press just in the two months following the event. 53 It is possible that this coverage generated anxiety and subsequently modified treatment-seeking and other subjective behaviors. 26 There is at least one study available which showed a 60% increase in the pediatric injury visits to the emergency room during the week following the death of Natasha Richardson in Canada.…”

Is there a need for a ski helmet mandatory for children?

“…In the winter season 2008/2009, a broad public discussion about ski helmet use has arisen after few fatal skiing injuries involving celebrities in Europe and North America (Jung et al., ; Keays & Pless, ; Ruedl et al., ). As a consequence of these public discussions, mainly based on fatalities of unhelmeted adult skiers, helmet use has become mandatory for children under 16 years in most Austrian provinces (Jung et al., ; Ruedl et al., ).…”