The number of golf cart-related injuries in children has risen to more than 6,500 a year, according to a new study by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). More than half of those injuries occur in children under the age of 12. The findings were presented at this year's meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
"As motorized golf carts have become more widely used at a variety of events, including sports games, festivals, and concerts, so too have golf cart-related injuries in children," said study author Theodore J. Ganley, MD, Director of the Sports Medicine and Performance Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Chair of the AAP Section on Orthopedics. "This research highlights the need for safety education around the risks golf carts pose to children of all ages, so that we can prevent such injuries from happening in the future."
The researchers analyzed the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database for all golf cart injuries from 2010 to 2019 in those under the age of 21. Over the ten-year study period, the researchers identified 63,503 golf cart-related injuries. They also found that the number of injuries per year has steadily increased from 5,490 in 2010 to more than 6,500 in the last three years of the study (2017, 2018, 2019).
