Abstract:
The aim was to examine variations by ethnic background, or people who use government funded secondary services for emergency treatment of injuries to the head, during 1995 - the first year of mandatory ethnic monitoring within United Kingdom (UK) hospitals. Inpatient activity data from 6 contiguous UK District Health Authorities (approx. 2 million population), with large black and minority ethnic communities (approx. 360,000), were combined with demographic details of the 1991 national census. For the first six months of ethnic monitoring, hospital inpatient activity comprised some 65,524 emergency consultations, of which 1,927 (2.9%) were for injuries to the head. These injuries were generally over three times as common amongst males (chi-squared: p<0.001), and there existed significantly higher rates of emergency service utilisation amongst children for all minority groups except black people (p<0.01). In contrast, the number of emergency head injury consultations were highest amongst the black group aged between 25 and 34 years (p<0.001). Furthermore, it was observed that the incidence of these injuries remained high amongst older black males and were also more common amongst the Indian male community (aged 55 and over). In conclusion, clear differences in service utilisation for head injuries exist for different minority ethnic groups. In particular, black males aged between 25 and 34 years are more likely to present as emergencies with head injuries than any other ethnic group, and this feature is sustained by the older male black community.