The injury epidemiology of cyclists based on a road trauma registry

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bicycle use has increased in some of France's major cities, mainly as a means of transport. Bicycle crashes need to be studied, preferably by type of cycling. Here we conduct a descriptive analysis.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>A road trauma registry has been in use in France since 1996, in a large county around Lyon (the Rhône, population 1.6 million). It covers outpatients, inpatients and fatalities. All injuries are coded using the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). Proxies were used to identify three types of cycling: learning = children (0-10 years old); sports cycling = teenagers and adults injured outside towns; cycling as means of transport = teenagers and adults injured in towns. The study is based on 13,684 cyclist casualties (1996-2008).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The percentage of cyclists injured in a collision with a motor vehicle was 8% among children, 17% among teenagers and adults injured outside towns, and 31% among those injured in towns. The percentage of serious casualties (MAIS 3+) was 4.5% among children, 10.9% among adults injured outside towns and 7.2% among those injured in towns. Collisions with motor-vehicles lead to more internal injuries than bicycle-only crashes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The description indicates that cyclist type is associated with different crash and injury patterns. In particular, cyclists injured in towns (where cycling is increasing) are generally less severely injured than those injured outside towns for both types of crash (bicycle-only crashes and collisions with a motor vehicle). This is probably due to lower speeds in towns, for both cyclists and motor vehicles.</p

The reframing of family policies in France: processes and actors

French family policy is generally considered as one of the oldest, most explicit and extensive in Europe. To understand the changes in this public policy sector during the past decades, we first discuss the roots and scope of family policy and then propose a 'process tracing' to identify sequences, based on two sets of opposing principles that have shaped French family policy history: universality versus selectivity and French 'familialisme' versus individualism. In the last two sections, a detailed analysis of the dynamics of change is presented before focusing on the role of the different protagonists of this change: political actors, high-ranking civil servants, family associations and experts. We underline the importance of a small group of high-ranking civil servants, called the 'welfare elite', in this specific sector, whose contribution explains the permanent French specificity and path dependency