Bicycle helmet wearing among adolescents : the effectiveness of a school-based injury prevention countermeasure

Adolescents experience many benefits from bicycling however there are also potentially significant injury consequences. One effective countermeasure for the prevention of adolescent bicycling injuries is to promote bicycle helmet wearing. In this paper, an overview is provided of injury risks of bicycle riding with particular attention to the role of helmet wearing and associated countermeasures such as legislation and school and community approaches. This paper presents the findings of a study conducted in Australia that examined the effectiveness of a theory-based injury prevention program, Skills for Preventing Injury in Youth (SPIY) for 9th grade students (aged 13-14 years). The findings showed a significant, 20.2% decrease in cycling without a helmet among the intervention students (n=360) and no change for the students in the comparison group (n=363) after six months. In addition, it was found that failing to wear a helmet was significantly associated with engaging in other transport risks, being male, having friends who don’t wear a helmet and specific targets of change in the SPIY program, negative attitude to risk, failing to intervene in friends’ risk-taking and low first aid knowledge. Overall, SPIY appeared to be an effective theory-based intervention to increase helmet wearing among early adolescents, a group not often targeted in school and community helmet wearing programs