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Injury and Mortality

A mother and daughter speaking with a doctor

An injury is harm or damage to a person's body. Injuries can be accidental or deliberate.^[1]Mortality or death is the permanent loss of all signs of life "after a live birth has taken place".^[2]

Why is this important?

Most injuries and deaths from injuries are preventable.^[3,4]Injuries that do happen can result in unnecessary loss of life and grief for family and loved ones. In Canada, preventable injury is the most common reason for death for children and adults ages from one to 44 years old.^[4]

Hospitalization Rate by Injury

Hospitalization for injury occurs when a patient is admitted to the hospital as an inpatient. Hospitalizations are counted at discharge from hospital or if a death occurs.^[6]This measure provides injury information distributed by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) through the IntelliHealth database^[8]about the primary reason for a hospital stay.

Why is Injury Hospitalization Important?

Injury hospitalization costs individuals and communities money. When someone is injured, it results in both direct costs (e.g. a hospital stay) and indirect costs (e.g. lost productivity due to time in hospital).^[4,5]Tracking injury hospitalization can help in developing injury prevention, education and treatment resources and programs to meet local needs and trends.^[7]

Hospitalization by Top 5 Injuries by Year

Key Findings

From 2006 to 2016 in Guelph and Wellington County, unintentional injuries were much more common than intentional injuries. Compared to all other injury categories, the rate of injuries due to falls was much higher than the rate of injury for all other categories.

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*Wellington County does not include Guelph

Source: Inpatient Discharges [2013-2016], IntelliHEALTH ONTARIO, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Date Extracted: [June 2017].

Prepared by: Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. Last updated August 2017.

Limitations

Since a person may not be hospitalized, or may be hospitalized several times for the same disease or injury event, or discharged from more than one hospital (when transferred) for the same injury event, hospitalization data provide only a crude measure of the prevalence of a cause.^[9]These data are not a count of everyone who may have experienced an injury in Guelph and Wellington. People who were injured but did not seek medical attention at a hospital and/or did not require hospitalization are not counted above.

Looking for more information?

Please download the excel file below for:

More information about how this measure is calculated
Hospitalization rates for other injuries
Hospitalization rates for injuries by age
Hospitalization rates for injuries by gender

Download Full Dataset (Excel)

Hospitalization for Falls and Collisions by Age

Key Findings

Overall rate of injury was highest for people who were 75 years old and older, followed by people who were 65 to 74 years old and 0 to 19 years old. Injuries due to falls were most common across all age groups. The rate of falls for people 75 and older in Guelph was higher than the rate of falls for people 75 and older in Wellington County.

In Wellington County, the highest rates of injuries due to vehicle or land transport collisions was for people ages 20 to 44 years old and people ages 75 and older. In Guelph, people 65 to 74 years olds had the highest rate of injury because of vehicle or land transport collisions.

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*Wellington County does not include Guelph

Source: Inpatient Discharges [2013-2016], IntelliHEALTH ONTARIO, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Date Extracted: [June 2017].

Prepared by: Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. Last updated August 2017.

Limitations

Since a person may not be hospitalized, or may be hospitalized several times for the same disease or injury event, or discharged from more than one hospital (when transferred) for the same injury event, hospitalization data provide only a crude measure of the prevalence of a cause.[9] These data are not a count of everyone who may have experienced an injury in Guelph and Wellington. People who were injured but did not seek medical attention at a hospital and/or did not require hospitalization are not counted above.

Looking for more information?

Please download the excel file below for:

More information about how this measure is calculated
Hospitalization rates for other injuries
Hospitalization rates for injuries by age
Hospitalization rates for injuries by gender

Download Full Dataset (Excel)

Hospitalizations for Self-Harm

Key Findings

The rate of injury due to self-injury was highest for people ages 10 to 19 years old, for both Guelph and Wellington County, when compared to other age groups for the same injury type. In Guelph and Wellington, when compared to males, females had a higher rate of injury due intentional self-harm.

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*Wellington County does not include Guelph

**Data for people 75+ years old in Wellington County was not available

Source: Inpatient Discharges [2013-2016], IntelliHEALTH ONTARIO, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Date Extracted: [June 2017].

Prepared by: Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. Last updated August 2017.

Limitations

Since a person may not be hospitalized, or may be hospitalized several times for the same disease or injury event, or discharged from more than one hospital (when transferred) for the same injury event, hospitalization data provide only a crude measure of the prevalence of a cause.^[9] These data are not a count of everyone who may have experienced an injury in Guelph and Wellington. People who were injured but did not seek medical attention at a hospital and/or did not require hospitalization are not counted above.

Length of Life

Length of life can be understood by measuring life expectancy. Life expectancy refers to how many years a person is expected to live.^[10]

Measure: Life Expectancy at Birth and Age 65

This measure presents the average number of years Canadians are expected to live from birth and at the age of 65. This information has been taken directly from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) dashboard. The Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network includes Guelph, Wellington County, Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge and part of Grey County.

Key Findings

Life expectancy in the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network area stayed the same or increased from 2000 to 2009. This aligns with the provincial and national trends in life expectancy.

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Source: Vital Sign Statistics - Death and Birth Databases, Statistics Canada as retrieved from Canadian Institute for Health Information (2017). Your Health System: Life Expectancy at Birth details for Waterloo Wellington LHIN Website location: https://yourhealthsystem.cihi.ca/hsp/indepth;jsessionid=h+BLarYSt0aEZe5tu4K7+Lqe.yhs?lang=en#/indicator/011/3/C5004/

Why is Life Expectancy Important?

Life expectancy tells us about mortality trends across age groups.^[11] Over the past hundreds of years, life expectancy has increased. Reasons for increased life expectancy include improved access to nutritious food, safe drinking water, birth control, immunization and medical supports and services.^[12]Tracking trends in life expectancy is important to inform service and program planning, particularly when considering the needs of people who may live longer but who may not be in good health in the final years of their life.^[10]

Looking for more information?

Please download the excel file below for more information about this measure

Download Full Dataset (Excel)

References

[1] Billette, J-M, Janz, T. (2015) Health at a Glance- Injuries in Canada: Insights from the Canadian Community Health Survey. Available at: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-624-x/2011001/article/11506-eng.htm

[2] Statistics Canada (2015). Data quality, concepts and methodology: Definitions. Available at: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/84f0209x/2009000/technote-notetech1-eng.htm

[3] Public Health Agency of Canada (2011). The Chief Public Health officer's Report on the State of Public Health in Canada. Available at: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cphorsphc-respcacsp/2011/cphorsphc-respcacsp-07-eng.php#Pre

[4] Parachute (2015). The Cost of Injury in Canada. Parachute: Toronto, ON. Available at: http://www.parachutecanada.org/downloads/research/Cost_of_Injury-2015.pdf

[5] SMARTRISK. (2009). The Economic Burden of Injury in Canada. SMARTRISK: Toronto, ON Available at: http://www.parachutecanada.org/downloads/research/reports/EBI2009-Eng-Final.pdf

Statistic Canada (2013). Health Indicators 2013: Definitions, Data Sources and Rationale, May 2013. Available at: https://www.cihi.ca/en/ind_defin_2013_en.pdf

Canadian Institute for Health Information (2013b). Health indicators 2013. Available at: https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/HI2013_Jan30_EN.pdf

[8] IntelliHealth (2015). Welcome to IntelliHealth. Available at: https://intellihealth.moh.gov.on.ca/

[9] Association of Public Health Epidemiologists (2012). Hospitalization Data. Available at: http://core.apheo.ca/index.php?pid=204

[10] Statistics Canada (2016). Life Expectancy. Available at: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-229-x/2009001/demo/lif-eng.htm

[11] World Health Organization (n.d.) Life Expectancy at birth. Available at: http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat2006DefinitionsAndMetadata.pdf

[12] Clark JN. Health, illness, and medicine in Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1990 as cited in Statistics Canada (2016). Life Expectancy. Available at: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-229-x/2009001/demo/lif-eng.htm