Visitor Injuries in the National Park System: A 5-Year Review of Golden Gate National Recreation Area
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 79 KB
- Volume
- 22
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1080-6032
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✦ Synopsis
Objective.-We examined incident reports at Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) to describe the scope and burden of visitor injuries in one of the National Park Service's most-visited parks. There are currently limited data that describe the epidemiology of injuries within the National Park Service. This research will contribute to the understanding of visitor injury in parks and help define the nature of visitor injuries specifically at GGNRA.
Methods.-We conducted a retrospective study of case incident reports during a 5-year period, from January 2005 to December 2009. SPSS was used to conduct descriptive analysis on factors such as geographic location, residence of the injured person, age, sex, activity, nature of injury, environment type, and contributing factors.
Results.-There were a total of 699 unintentional injuries reported at GGNRA during the 5-year period, 669 nonfatal and 30 fatal. The top 3 activities leading to injury were hiking/walking (39%), cycling (29%), and ocean sports/ swimming (11%). Of the 30 fatalities, the vast majority were men (90%). More injuries occurred on Saturday and Sunday (43%) than on weekdays. Several locations were identified as high risk, based on large numbers of incidents in those locations.
Conclusions.-This study characterizes the scope and nature of visitor injuries at GGNRA and provides information that may assist rangers targeting prevention efforts by location as well as type of activity. A better system for injury data collection throughout the National Park Service may help parks execute more effective injury prevention programs.