‘Safe Youth’ presentation to the Queensland Injury Prevention Council

Commissioner Elizabeth Fraser presented at the Queensland Injury Prevention Council (QIPC) Results and Recommendations Seminar in June.

The Commissioner’s presentation on ‘Safe Youth’ (PDF, 52KB) included some of the ways that the Commission – through its child death review functions – is working to make teenagers safer.

Through its work in collating and analysing child death data, the Commission is ideally placed to collaborate with stakeholders from a range of disciplines to help reduce childhood death and injury in Queensland.

The Commissioner’s presentation focused on two categories of child death affecting older children – suicide and transport-related fatalities.

Between 2004 and 2011 some 134 young people suicided in Queensland, including 102 aged 15 to 17 years. Over the same period 319 children have died in transport incidents, including 152 aged 15 to 17 years.

The Commissioner emphasised how the detailed and up-to-date data from the Commission’s child death register is available to assist the QIPC in monitoring and responding to these and other troubling trends in child mortality.

The Commissioner also commended a recent publication by QIPC-aligned researchers from the Queensland Children’s Medical Research Unit. This research used the Commission’s child death register data to underpin an internationally-recognised project on low-speed run-over injuries in children. Published in the journal Injury Prevention, Ms Bronwyn Griffin and her fellow authors acknowledged the Commission’s assistance in providing a unique source of child mortality data which would otherwise be unavailable to researchers.

The Commissioner acknowledges the excellent work that the QIPC is doing to improve the wellbeing of children and young people in Queensland.

The Commission will continue to foster a close relationship with the QIPC, and to work collaboratively to provide data for stakeholder research in the field of injury prevention.

For more information about the Commission’s child death register data email: data@ccypcg.qld.gov.au

 About the QIPC

The Queensland Injury Prevention Council (QIPC) was established by Queensland Health in 2008 as an advisory committee to the Director-General of Queensland Health.

The Commission is a member of the QIPC, which aims to:

• substantially reduce injury rates and the severity of injuries in Queensland, and
• demonstrate national leadership in injury prevention activities.

QIPC takes a partnership approach to achieve these objectives, as no single sector or agency has control over the multiple settings and causes of injury.

The membership of QIPC includes:

• representatives of injury prevention organisations, injury prevention academics, emergency medicine practitioners
• representatives from other relevant government agencies including Fair Trading, Queensland Transport, Queensland Ambulance Service and Main Roads, and
• Indigenous health experts and representatives from private industry.

For more information about the QIPC, including the contribution of the Commission’s Keeping Country Kids Safe project as a key QIPC injury prevention initiative, click here

Last Updated: July 19, 2011

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