In working to create a safer WA, Injury Matters has completed research to understand the perceived attitudes towards injury in WA and gain insights into the actions and influences that precede unintentional injuries across different settings.
In partnership with Monash University’s BehaviourWorks Australia team, Injury Matters has finalised Stage Two of the project. This stage of the project sought to extend the findings from Stage One by obtaining a more representative sample regarding the self-reported incidence of injury prevention behaviours, behavioural influences of unintentional injury and to unpack how the WA community talks about the issue of injury prevention.
Following the collation of an additional 510 respondents in January 2023, a total of 1,022 Western Australian adults responded to the online community survey.
What did we learn?
Despite more than three Western Australians dying a day due to an injury-related incident, only 16% of survey respondents indicated that they were ‘concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about the level and frequency of injuries in Western Australia. However, this lack of concern may be attributable to the majority of the respondents being confident in their ability to avoid injury (88%) and having a high self-reported ability to adopt risk-reduction strategies (90%).
Supporting the efforts of current injury prevention education activities across the state, generally respondents believe that unintentional injuries are at least slightly preventable (68%) and that they have adequate information to reduce their risk of injury (80%).
The survey highlighted key ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ behaviours conducted by the Western Australian adult population. Those ‘safe’ behaviours with the lowest reported adoption included;
- Taking a moment before starting a task to assess any hazards and risks,
- Asking someone to supervise you while completing tasks that pose greater and
- Providing supervision or assistance to other adults when they complete tasks that pose greater risk.
Whilst the three most common ‘unsafe’ behaviours were:
- Improvising when the equipment you need to complete a task or activity is not easily available,
- Completing tasks at an inappropriate speed and
- Completing tasks while also doing something else.
In relation to who was more likely to be unsafe, survey results indicate that it is younger adults, those with habitual behaviours and people with kids under the age of 18.
Opening the door for future awareness raising and educational activities the majority of survey respondents trust experts and authorities (81%) and believe adopting public service campaign recommendations is effective (78%).
If you are interested in being involved in the project or would like any additional information please contact Injury Matters via [email protected].