Geospatial analysis is increasingly being used to evaluate the design and effectiveness of trauma systems, but there are no metrics to describe the geographic distribution of incidents. The aim of this study, therefore, was to evaluate the feasibility and utility of using spatial analysis to characterize, at scale, the geospatial profile of an injured population.
This is a prospective national cohort study of all trauma patients attended to by the Scottish Ambulance Service in a complete year (between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014). Incident location and severity were collected at source. Incident distribution was evaluated using geostatistical techniques.
There were 80,391 recorded incidents involving traumatic injury. Incident density was highest in the central Southern part of the country and along the East coast, broadly following the population distribution and road network. The overall distribution was highly clustered, and centered on the central Southern and Eastern parts of the country. When analyzed by triage category, the distribution of incidents triaged to major trauma center care was slightly less clustered than that of incidents triaged to trauma unit or local emergency hospital care, but the spread was similar. When analyzed by type of injury, assaults and falls were more clustered than incidents relating to traffic and transportation.
This study demonstrates the feasibility and power of describing the geographic distribution of a group of injured patients. The methodology described has potential application for injury surveillance and trauma system design and evaluation.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 May 2015.
All research outputs
#9,553,972
of 34,358,242 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, The
#2,546
of 5,304 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#87,648
of 306,794 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, The
#37
of 92 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,358,242 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,304 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 306,794 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 92 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 59% of its contemporaries.
