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Abstract
Introduction School holidays are a known period of increased risk of paediatric drowning. However, the risk of coastal death for all age groups is unknown.
Methods This case–control study aimed to identify high-risk demographics and behaviours relating to coastal deaths during the school holidays. We address this knowledge gap by comparing unintentional coastal deaths (drowning deaths and other coastal fatalities) in Australia between 1 July 2004–30 June 2021 to a survey sample representative of the Australian population.
Results School holidays increased the risk of coastal death increased overall by 1.39 times (95% CI 1.32 to 146, p=0.00019). This increased risk differed across activities, behaviours and demographics. Few between-group differences were detected, indicating that school holidays pose an increased risk to the wider Australian population on the coast, regardless of demographics and practices. Increased school holiday mortality risk was identified broadly across groups, but notably for young adults (risk ratio, RR 1.41, 95% CI 1.31 to 1.53, p<0.001), when attempting a rescue (RR 1.85, 95% CI 1.42 to 2.39, p=0.0002), scuba diving (RR 1.82, 95% CI 1.48 to 2.23, p<0.0001) and swimming/wading (RR 1.72, 95% CI 1.56 to 1.89, p<0.0001). Children did not have a significantly increased risk of death (RR 1.38, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.87, p=0.054).
Conclusion These results highlight that while school holiday risk research regarding drowning has focused on the safety of children, these time periods also pose significant safety concerns to the rest of the population for both drowning deaths and other fatalities. Overall, the research highlights ongoing need for public education for all carers of children, as well as continuing to extend risk education to the broader community. Mitigation strategies, that is, advocacy for extending life-saving service and engaging with accommodation providers during school holidays are proposed.
- Drowning
- Mortality
- Exposure
- School
Data availability statement
Data are available on reasonable request. Summarised data pertaining to this study are available in online supplemental detail. Access to the full dataset is restricted due to Human Ethics agreements with third party data custodians and due to the confidential nature of the data pertaining the decedents. Please contact JCL at Surf Life Saving Australia for any data requests.
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Data availability statement
Data are available on reasonable request. Summarised data pertaining to this study are available in online supplemental detail. Access to the full dataset is restricted due to Human Ethics agreements with third party data custodians and due to the confidential nature of the data pertaining the decedents. Please contact JCL at Surf Life Saving Australia for any data requests.
Footnotes
X @Dr_Jaz_Lawes
Contributors Luke Strasiotto: Conceptualization; Data curation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Annabel Ellis: Conceptualization; Data curation, Literature review, Writing – review & editing; JShane Daw: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition; Jasmin C Lawes: Conceptualization, Data curation, Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – Original draft, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Guarantor.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests While there was no specific funding for this project from any sources, LS, JCL and SD are current paid employees of Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) while AE is a previous employee of SLSA. The research of this study may have direct impacts of the operational aspects of SLSA, and the data provided for analysis is SLSA data. Although there was no specific funding for this research, it was indirectly funded by the salaries and wages paid by SLSA to the Authors who are/were employees of SLSA. LS, JCL and SD all had and have ongoing access to the study, AE has not had access to the raw data. SD is further a long-time volunteer of various clubs at Surf Life Saving Australia. SD is the general manager of coastal safety at SLSA and JCL is the principal researcher at SLSA. The outcome of this research will be of use to SLSA in its operational procedures to prevent deaths on the Australian coast.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.