Objective: To determine the incidence of non-fatal injuries and related influencing factors among children under 5 years old in China.
Methods: Data involving 10 819 children under 5 years old was from the Fourth National Health Service Survey of China. Injury-related indicators include: history of ever having had an injury, its frequency, cause, location and severity of the injury. A two-level Poisson regression was used to examine the significance of related socio-economic variables.
Results: The overall incidence rate of nonfatal injuries among children under 5 years old was 16.0 per 1000 population in the prior 12 months. The first three leading causes of non-fatal injuries were falls, animal bite, fire/burn among children under 1 year old, with the rates as 3.9, 1.8 and 1.8 per 1000 population, respectively. For children aged 1 to 4 years old, the first three leading causes were animal bite, fall, fire/burn with rates as 6.5, 6.0 and 2.9 per 1000 population, respectively. 83.0% and 69.0% of last injuries occurred at home for the above said two age groups. No disability was found among children younger than 1 year old who suffered from a nonfatal injury while for the 1 - 4 age group, the disability accounted for 1.0% of injury-induced outcomes. After adjusting other variables, boys had 1.57 times the risk of injury compared with girls in the 1 - 4 age group (P < 0.05). The differences on the effects regarding ethnicity, per capita household income, and place were insignificant (P > 0.05). None of the socio-economic variables was found that significantly related to the non-fatal injury risk among children under 1 year old (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: The incidence of nonfatal injuries among children under 5 years old was 16.0 per 1000 population in the prior 12 months. The three leading causes of injuries were animal bite, falls, fire/burn respectively. Home was the most common place that non-fatal injuries occurred. Boys had a higher risk of injury compared with girls among children aged 1 to 4 years old and the difference was significant.