Accidents of daily life (ADL) are defined as unintentional injuries that are neither traffic accidents nor workplace accidents. ADLs include accidents in the home, sports and recreational accidents, accidents at school, and all accidents occurring at other times in one’s private life.

Responsible for more than 200 deaths of children under 15 each year, AcVCs represent a major public health challenge and are part of the 2018–2022 National Health Strategy. As the leading cause of death among children aged 1 to 14, AcVCs are estimated to account for 2.4 million visits to healthcare professionals among children under 15 in France.

Stable Numbers of Emergency Department Visits for AcVC

Over the 2014–2018 period, 208,735 emergency department visits for ACI among children under 15 were recorded in the seven hospitals of the EPAC network included in this study (an average of 41,000 visits per year).

Emergency department visits for AcVC were more frequent among very young children (ages 1–3) and “pre-teens” (ages 10–13) compared to children in other age groups. The majority of accident victims were boys, regardless of age, which could be explained by their more frequent participation in accident-prone activities.

Between 2014 and 2018, the number of emergency department visits for AcVC remained generally stable. Nevertheless, despite this stability, the characteristics of AcVC visits by age, mechanism, and injuries changed over the period.

The circumstances of these AcVCs follow the major stages of child development

These accidents tend to occur in the home among very young children, while the proportion of accidents at school, on sports fields, and in playgrounds increases after age 5. Falls were the most common mechanism among the youngest children, who still have limited mobility, whereas for older children, the products involved were more specific to sports (ball) and recreational activities (bicycle, trampoline, slide, scooter).

Nearly two-thirds of cases did not result in hospitalization or subsequent medical follow-up. However, the hospitalization rate following a visit to the emergency department was higher among children under 1 year of age (11% vs. between 4% and 6% among older children), indicating a potentially greater severity of these AcVCs in this age group and certainly greater caution on the part of physicians. CVA due to asphyxia or suffocation and CVA due to chemical effects had high hospitalization rates, 18% and 19% respectively, indicating their severity.

Accidents that can be prevented through the implementation of preventive measures

These results confirm the need to continue efforts to prevent accidents of daily life. Measures must prioritize falls, which are the most frequent accidents and can lead to serious injuries, such as head trauma. They must also target accidents involving toxic substances and accidents involving asphyxiation/suffocation, due to their severity.

The implementation of a large-scale prevention program would help improve the prevention of accidents of daily life in France.