Human Injuries Associated with the Transport of Horses by Road

SIMPLE SUMMARY: There is an increased understanding of shared human–animal risk in terms of “one welfare”, whereby when animals are at risk, so are people. Reducing the risk and preventing injury to one species may also prevent injury to the other. The authors of the current manuscript considered this approach to study road equine transport-related injuries to humans in New Zealand and so aimed to determine their frequency and associated factors. New Zealand horse industry participants were surveyed on their horse industry, activities, and road transport experiences and asked if they had experienced horse-related self-injury. There were 112/1067 (10.5%) owners and carers injured while preparing, loading, traveling, or unloading. Of these, four in ten had multiple injury types, and a third had several body regions affected. Hand injury was most common, followed by the foot, arm, head, or face. Injuries were associated with the responder’s industry educational background, driving experience, and reporting a horse injured during road transport in the past two years. Findings support wearing helmets and gloves, and adopting strategies designed to eliminate equine injuries associated with the road transport of horses to reduce the risk of injury to their handlers. ABSTRACT: There is an increased understanding of shared human–animal risk in terms of “one welfare”, whereby when animals are at risk, so are people, so preventing injury to one species may also prevent injury to the other. Because transport-related injuries to horses are common, the authors considered this paradigm to study road equine transport-related injuries to humans in New Zealand. The aim was to determine their frequency and associated factors by distributing a survey to horse industry participants through industry organisations asking about their horse activities, road transport experiences, and any related self-injury. There were 112/1067 (10.5%) handlers injured while preparing (13/112), loading (39/112), traveling (6/112), or unloading (33/112). Of these, 40% had multiple injury types, and 33% had several body regions affected. Hand injuries were most common (46%), followed by the foot (25%), arm (17%), and head or face (15%). Median recovery time was 7 days. Injuries were associated with the responder’s industry educational background, years of driving experience, and reporting a horse injured during road transport in the past two years. Wearing helmets and gloves, and adopting strategies designed to eliminate equine injuries associated with the road transport of horses to reduce the risk of injury to their handlers are recommended.