Guidance for sports injury surveillance: the 20-year influence of the Australian Sports Injury Data Dictionary.

BACKGROUND: Injury prevention requires information about how, why, where and when injuries occur. The Australian Sports Injury Data Dictionary (ASIDD) was developed to guide sports injury data collection and reporting. Sports Medicine Australia (SMA) disseminated associated data collection forms and an online tool to practitioners and the sports community. This paper assesses the long-term value, usefulness and relevance of the ASIDD and SMA tools. METHODS: A systematic search strategy identified both peer-reviewed and grey literature that used the ASIDD and/or the SMA tools, during 1997-2016. A text-based search was conducted within 10 electronic databases, as well as a Google Image search for the SMA tools. Documents were categorised according to ASIDD use as: (1) collected injury data; (2) informed data coding; (3) developed an injury data collection tool and/or (4) reference only. RESULTS: Of the 36 peer-reviewed articles, 83% directly referred to ASIDD and 17% mentioned SMA tools. ASIDD was mainly used for data coding (42%), reference (36%), data collection (17%) or resource development (14%). In contrast, 86% of 66 grey literature sources referenced, used or modified the SMA data collection forms. CONCLUSIONS: The ASIDD boasts a long history of use and relevance. Its ongoing use by practitioners has been facilitated by the ready availability of specific data collection forms by SMA for them to apply to directly their settings. Injury prevention practitioners can be strongly engaged in injury surveillance activities when formal guidance is supported by user-friendly tools directly relevant to their settings and practice.

Drowning deaths between 1861 and 2000 in Victoria, Australia.

OBJECTIVE: To identify the long-term patterns of drowning mortality in the state of Victoria, Australia, and to describe the historical context in which the decrease occurred. METHODS: We obtained data on drowning deaths and population statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and its predecessors for the period 1861 to 2000. From these data, we calculated drowning death rates per 100 000 population per year, by gender and age. We reviewed primary and secondary historical resources, such as government and newspaper archives, books and the Internet, to identify changes or events in the state that may have affected drowning mortality. FINDINGS: From 1861 to 2000, at least 18 070 people drowned in Victoria. Male drowning rates were higher than those for females in all years and for all ages. Both sexes experienced the highest drowning rate in 1863 (79.5 male deaths per 100 000 population and 18.8 female death per 100 000 population). The lowest drowning rate was documented in 2000 (1.4 male deaths per 100 000 population and 0.3 female deaths per 100 000 population). The reduction patterns of drowning mortality occurred within a historical context of factors that directly affected drowning mortality, such as the improvement in people's water safety skills, or those that incidentally affected drowning mortality, like infrastructure development. CONCLUSION: We identified patterns of reduction in drowning mortality, both in males and females and across age groups. These patterns could be linked to events and factors that happened in Victoria during this period. These findings may have relevance to current developing communities.

Strengthening nursing and midwifery capacity in rural New South Wales, Australia.

A small rural health service and two university schools of nursing joined forces to establish a rural clinical school to advance clinical education and research. The collaboration, while in its infancy, has given rise to outcomes that strength the capacity of nursing and midwifery services in the community.

Incidence and prevalence of non-melanoma skin cancer in Australia: A systematic review.

Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), including basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), is the most common cancer occurring in people with fair skin. Australia has been reported to have the highest incidence of NMSC in the world. Using a systematic search of the literature in EMBASE and Medline, we identified 21 studies that investigated the incidence or prevalence of NMSC in Australia. Studies published between 1948 and 2011 were identified and included in the analysis. There were six studies that were conducted on national level, two at state level and 13 at the regional level. Overall, the incidence of NMSC had steadily increased over calendar-years in Australia. The incidence of NMSC per 100,000 person-years was estimated to be 555 in 1985; 977 in 1990; 1109 in 1995; 1170 in 2002 and 2448 in 2011. The incidence was higher for men than women and higher for BCC than SCC. Incidence varied across the states of Australia, with the highest in Queensland. The prevalence of NMSC was estimated to be 2% in Australia in 2002. The incidence and prevalence of NMSC still need to be accurately established at both national and state levels to determine the costs and burden of the disease on the public health system in Australia.

NHS reforms in England: the implications for chemotherapy commissioning.

For oncology, one of the biggest effects of the reforms to the National Health Service (NHS) in England has been the designation of systemic anticancer treatments (other than hormonal agents) as a specialised service. This means that all decisions regarding the commissioning of chemotherapy are made at the national level via NHS England (NHSE), under expert guidance from the Chemotherapy Clinical Reference Group (CRG). Commissioning decisions will be based on several factors, not only clinical efficacy and cost/affordability, but also the 'added value' that a new treatment may offer in terms of patient outcomes, resource utilisation, and/or wider benefits to society. Oncology health-care professionals (HCPs) are in a position to affect cancer commissioning decisions in the reformed NHS, not only the small number who are members of the Chemotherapy CRG, but also as advisors to the Chemotherapy CRG via disease-specific consensus work, and through participation in the collection and reporting of real-life data on patient outcomes. With the emerging emphasis on both consensus work and outcomes data, a step change can also be expected in the relationship between HCPs and the pharmaceutical industry, including a strengthened role for non-promotional education, support for forums and consensus groups, and facilitation of the development, collection, and dissemination of findings from real-life practice. In addition, there will be an onus on the pharmaceutical industry to provide information on the implications that new products may have for service delivery and capacity and for meeting patients' and society's expectations. This information will need to be developed and delivered in a timely way, well in advance of the launch of a new product.

Trends in tractor related fatalities among adults working on farms in Victoria, Australia, 1985-2010.

Tractors are associated with more fatalities than any other piece of machinery in agriculture, with tractor rollovers being a frequent mechanism. This study examines tractor fatalities between 1985 and 2010 in Victoria, Australia, and examines the impact of the 1998 legislation mandating the retrofitting of rollover protection structures (ROPS). The data source was the Victorian WorkCover Authority to whom unintentional work placed deaths are reportable. During the study period, 121 tractor fatalities occurred, of which 55 were rollovers. Poisson regression modelling indicated a significant decline in rollover fatalities during this period of approximately 7% per annum (incidence rate ratio [IRR]=0.93, 95% CI 0.90-0.97), however there was no simple relationship between the introduction of the legislation and the fatality decrease. It is proposed that the impact of previous voluntary retrofitting initiatives, coupled with the existing requirement for ROPS on new tractors, may have increased ROPS fitment to a critical point prior to the final requirement for retrofitting, diluting the effect over a number of years so that it could not be detected using the statistical techniques that have been applied. An increased trend in run over fatalities was also found (IRR=1.04, 95% CI 1.00-1.09) suggesting the need for research into interventions for this type of fatality, such as safe tractor access platforms.