Helmet Your Head

Maricopa Integrated Health System and St. Josephs Hospital and Medical Center partner with local city government to promote helmet use among children and teens - November 30, 2005

This holiday season if a bicycle or skateboard is under the tree, doctors from Maricopa Medical Center and St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center hope it comes with a helmet.

Realizing that something must be done to help protect the children of this community, Maricopa Medical Center, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center along with the City of Phoenix have joined forces to build on the success of the Helmet Your Head awareness campaign currently used in schools throughout the Valley.

At 5 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 2 in the Administrative Building on the campus of Maricopa Medical Center (2601 E. Roosevelt St.) the medical community will announce future plans to educate the public about the importance of helmet safety.

Part of the Statewide Trauma Rounds a quarterly meeting of doctors from throughout the state trauma neurosurgeon Nicholas Theodore and trauma surgeon Patrick O'Neill will discuss the devastation they see daily because patients were not wearing a helmet.

We're doing this to save lives as well as educate the public, Dr. O'Neill said. This is a problem with a solution many of these injuries are preventable.

Combined data from Maricopa Medical Center and St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center illustrate the breadth of the problem.

More than 815 people, most of whom were children, suffered injuries as a result of not wearing a helmet while bicycling from January 2004 to May 2005.

  • Eighty-two percent of the injuries occurred within Phoenix city limits.
  • Statistics from a 2004 observational study of helmet use in the City of Phoenix indicate that only 19 percent of children under the age of 18 currently wear helmets. Additionally, helmet use among children ages 10-14 is only three percent.
  • The City of Phoenix has no child helmet ordinance.
  • Conversely, a 2004 observational study of helmet use in the City of Tucson, which has had a child helmet ordinance since 1995, indicates that 35 percent of children in the 10-14 year age range wear a helmet.
  • Data provided by St. Joseph's indicates that treatment of preventable head injuries for 387 patients seen in their facility cost in excess of $5.6 million. This figure represents inpatient care costs only. It does not take into account the massive rehabilitation costs often associated with traumatic brain injuries.

Last updated on December 3, 2008