ULYDIA - a tool for analysizing injury data

The Centre for Injury Research has developed a tool to facilitate analyses of data on external causes of injuries. This software tool is based on data in the Injury Register covering the period 1998-2005 and a total of approximately 777,000 visits to emergency departments at the 5 hospitals that participate in data collection for the Injury Register (annual figures are added regularly to the database).

The data has been anonymized. The software can can produce cross-tabs that describe patterns of injuries or accidents. For example, the following analyses can be performed:

• Which products are most frequently involved in poisonings in children aged 0-4 years?
• Age and gender variations in the occurrence of hip fractures among elderly following falls in the street, presented as numbers and incidence rates, respectively.
• Which injuries do elderly car drivers in traffic accidents without any counterpart sustain?
• At what time of the day do falls occur in the construction industry?
• Gender variation in accidents involving powered lawn mowers?  

The answers to these questions can be obtained within seconds, and the results can be presented as graphs or tables. Furthermore, the results can be exported to e.g spreadsheets for further work.

The ULYDIA tool provide an opportunity to analyse variables such as: Mechanism of injury, type of injury and body part affected, age, gender, place of occurrence, treatment and referral, products involved or causing injury, time of injury, mode of transport for victim and counterpart in traffic accidents, type of industry for workers (victims of occupational accidents), and type of sports for victims of sports injuries.

Responses are obtained as raw numbers in the Injury Register, numbers extrapolated to annual national figures, or incidence rates related to e.g. selected gender and age groups.