By Brigitte Pellerin, Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 2019
The study made the news, but it didn’t shock us nearly as much as it should have. Researchers found that kids from poorer neighbourhoods in Ontario get hit by cars significantly more than kids from wealthier areas. Excuse me for screaming, but something is wrong and we urgently need to fix it.
The study, conducted by a team under the direction of Dr. Linda Rothman of SickKids in Toronto, in collaboration with York University and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, found that children from the lowest-income areas were 52 per cent more likely to be struck by a vehicle than kids from the highest-income neighbourhoods.
Provincewide, between 2008 and 2015, the researchers found that while “pedestrian-motor vehicle collision-related emergency department visits decreased by 22 per cent in high-income neighbourhoods, the rates of visits in low-income neighbourhoods increased by 14 per cent.”
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/pellerin-our-road-safety-measures-dont-treat-all-kids-equally-lets-fix-this