Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk

Pedestrians’ slipping injuries are a very typical problem in the Nordic countries, causing varying degrees of injuries and in the worst case, long sick leaves. There is a clear seasonal variation in the number of slips. Sidewalk slipperiness and the risk of slips is a complex combination of weather,...

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Autores principales: Hippi, Marjo, Kangas, Markku
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8910018/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35270700
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19053007
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author Hippi, Marjo
Kangas, Markku
author_facet Hippi, Marjo
Kangas, Markku
author_sort Hippi, Marjo
collection PubMed
description Pedestrians’ slipping injuries are a very typical problem in the Nordic countries, causing varying degrees of injuries and in the worst case, long sick leaves. There is a clear seasonal variation in the number of slips. Sidewalk slipperiness and the risk of slips is a complex combination of weather, winter maintenance activities, number of walkers, and the grip between shoes and surface, as well as human behavioral and physical factors. In this study, the effect of weather on pedestrians’ slipping injuries is studied. Daily weather observations are compared to the slip statistics that have been collected from commuting accident statistics in cases where the way of commuting has been walking. A total of 16 cities from Finland for 14 winters are included in this study. The results reveal that snow on the ground increases the slip risk more than three times compared to no-snow situations. Near zero temperatures and precipitation are very typical on days when slip injuries occur more than usual. However, there are also days when high amounts of slips cannot be explained with the weather. The study also shows that there are significant differences as to the number and timing of slips between different parts of the country.
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spelling pubmed-89100182022-03-11 Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk Hippi, Marjo Kangas, Markku Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Pedestrians’ slipping injuries are a very typical problem in the Nordic countries, causing varying degrees of injuries and in the worst case, long sick leaves. There is a clear seasonal variation in the number of slips. Sidewalk slipperiness and the risk of slips is a complex combination of weather, winter maintenance activities, number of walkers, and the grip between shoes and surface, as well as human behavioral and physical factors. In this study, the effect of weather on pedestrians’ slipping injuries is studied. Daily weather observations are compared to the slip statistics that have been collected from commuting accident statistics in cases where the way of commuting has been walking. A total of 16 cities from Finland for 14 winters are included in this study. The results reveal that snow on the ground increases the slip risk more than three times compared to no-snow situations. Near zero temperatures and precipitation are very typical on days when slip injuries occur more than usual. However, there are also days when high amounts of slips cannot be explained with the weather. The study also shows that there are significant differences as to the number and timing of slips between different parts of the country. MDPI 2022-03-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8910018/ /pubmed/35270700 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19053007 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hippi, Marjo
Kangas, Markku
Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk
title Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk
title_full Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk
title_fullStr Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk
title_full_unstemmed Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk
title_short Impact of Weather on Pedestrians’ Slip Risk
title_sort impact of weather on pedestrians’ slip risk
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8910018/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35270700
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19053007
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