New playground equipment in 34 Toronto District School Board (TDSB) schools has given Dr. Andrew Howard an opportunity to test the effect of different surfacing materials on injury rates.

Playgrounds are places for fun, but the injuries that can result aren’t a laughing matter. Playground injuries account for about 10% of injury-related visits to the emergency department among children aged 5-9.

In a study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Dr. Howard, from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, will monitor injury rates in playgrounds with two different surfacing materials, wood chips and granite sand. He will look, in particular, at arm and wrist fractures and head injuries. His work will help to determine which surfaces create the safest playgrounds for children.

The study is part of Dr. Howard’s commitment to making playgrounds places for smiles, not tears. An earlier study, also conducted in Toronto school yards, found that removing unsafe equipment and replacing it with equipment that meets standards set by the Canadian Standards Association is a good way to reduce playground injuries.

He and his team compared injury rates between Toronto schools that had had unsafe equipment removed and replaced and those whose equipment did not need to be replaced. Injury rates in the 86 schools with new, CSA-approved equipment decreased, with 550 injuries avoided in the period of Dr. Howard’s study. Meanwhile, injury rates in the schools with older equipment increased.

CSA-approved playground equipment, together with the most effective surfacing material, will translate into safer schoolyards for our children. And that’s something to laugh about.

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)