The maxillofacial region is the most common site of injury sustained in assault. This provides opportunities to develop new measures of violence to complement criminal justice and crime survey perspectives. Objectives: to measure violence on a national basis from this injury perspective and to identify overall, regional and local trends. Methods: a stratified sample of 58 major Emergency Departments in England and Wales were recruited. Prospective electronic data on gender and date of attendance of all those reporting violence-related injury over the five year period 1995-2000 were studied. Injury rates were computed and ordinary least squares regression analysis was used to evaluate linear and non-linear trends in these time series data. Results: a total of 353,442 (258,719 males: 73%) violence-related attendances were identified. The only significant national trend was an increase of injury among females aged 11-17 years. Health region, gender and age specific increases in violence-related attendance slowed (p<0.05). There was significant seasonal variation with summer peaks and winter troughs, but violence affecting males aged 18-30 years was not subject to seasonality. Conclusions: from this ED perspective, community violence did not increase in England and Wales during 1995-2000. Slowing of age, gender and health region specific increases suggested that national violence came under control. Investigation of significant trends in individual cities deserves further study and could provide important new directions for violence prevention.

Back to the Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Program
Back to the 81st General Session of the International Association for Dental Research (June 25-28, 2003)

Top Level Search