Mandatory Helmet Laws - Research

[BobtheBuilder]

I'm currently studying a Masters of Evaluation at Melbourne uni and doing a research design subject this term, Applied Research Methodology (https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/2018/subjects/educ90848), where our major assessment is to design a research proposal (not to do it, just to design it so it's rigorous and valid).
I'm going to attempt to design a research project into the effects of Mandatory Helmet Laws on Public Health (this will probably be narrowed down to effects on riding levels or something).

Note: this thread is only for sharing research into the area of mandatory helmet laws (MHL), not the rights and wrongs of the law - this should be discussed over at the dedicated MHL thread - viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31309&start=9750.
Comments that don't address the topic will be removed from this thread.


If anyone knows of any research, articles, discussion, etc. about the public health effects of MHL I'd appreciate if you could post here or message me. This includes, for instance, arguments about the discouragement effect of the laws or conversely the health effects of a helmeted riding population. Remember, please post your personal opinions over at the MHL thread.

[AdelaidePeter]

I'm currently studying a Masters of Evaluation at Melbourne uni and doing a research design subject this term, Applied Research Methodology (https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/2018/subjects/educ90848), where our major assessment is to design a research proposal (not to do it, just to design it so it's rigorous and valid).
I'm going to attempt to design a research project into the effects of Mandatory Helmet Laws on Public Health (this will probably be narrowed down to effects on riding levels or something).

Note: this thread is only for sharing research into the area of mandatory helmet laws (MHL), not the rights and wrongs of the law - this should be discussed over at the dedicated MHL thread - viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31309&start=9750.
Comments that don't address the topic will be removed from this thread.


If anyone knows of any research, articles, discussion, etc. about the public health effects of MHL I'd appreciate if you could post here or message me. This includes, for instance, arguments about the discouragement effect of the laws or conversely the health effects of a helmeted riding population. Remember, please post your personal opinions over at the MHL thread.

Monash Uni did some studies in the 90s, where they had access to some data before and after the laws came in. I've only read the second of these (the 4 year study):
Evaluation of the Bicycle Helmet Wearing Law in Victoria During its First 12 Months https://www.monash.edu/muarc/our-publications/muarc032 (Cameron, Heiman and Neiger)
Evaluation of the Bicycle Helmet Wearing Law in Victoria during its First Four Years https://www.monash.edu/muarc/our-publications/muarc076 (Carr, Slovaka and Cameron)
In fact they've got a whole page of publications: https://www.monash.edu/muarc/our-public ... s/bicycles

[BobtheBuilder]

Monash Uni did some studies in the 90s, where they had access to some data before and after the laws came in.

Many thanks AdelaidePeter, very helpful!

[Thoglette]

I've put a bunch of references in the MHL thread. And at least a dozen articles which I've not put into biblo form yet but hopefully this will prompt me to do so.

Meahwhile, your first reading should be BMJ (Goldacre, B; Spiegelhalter, D (2013) DOI: 10.1136/bmj.f3817) and follow your nose from there.

A key article is "Overestimation of the effectiveness of the bicycle helmet by the use of
odds ratios" Theo. Zeegers 2015 which finally highlighted that you can't treat cyclists as a homogenous group.

In Australia there's the perennial Rissel v. Olivier tit for tat and you will need to cite both of them (and related parties) including Hansard from the Personal Freedoms session
(SENATE ECONOMICS REFERENCES COMMITTEE Monday, 16 November 2015 Members in attendance: Senators Canavan, Leyonhjelm).

There are also some surveys by Australian Heart foundation 2011; RAC WA 2016 (good luck finding that) and BNA 2017(?) all of which showed the impact of MHLs on participation in statistically meaningful sample sizes.

I expect that your literature review will highlight the confounding factors of transport design and liability laws/attitiudes.

All for now!

[BobtheBuilder]

I've put a bunch of references in the MHL thread. And at least a dozen articles which I've not put into biblo form yet but hopefully this will prompt me to do so.

Cheers for that. The MHL thread is pretty huge - can you suggest any keywords to search it to find those references and articles? Searching the thread using "Thoglette" and "*Thoglette" I got only a few hits - http://bicycles.net.au/forums/search.ph ... sf=msgonly
I am guessing the search engine is only looking for the text "Thoglette" in the posts themselves (i.e. when you're quoted by others), not in the username field, even though the Search help page says you can search for a user with an *asterisk before their name.

[antigee]

recently posted this short MJA article in another thread....contains some critique of oft quoted research...also not obvious at first a full list of the papers referenced can be found by clicking on the superscript numbers
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/mja-july-2016.pdf

[Thoglette]

The MHL thread is pretty huge - can you suggest any keywords to search it to find those references and articles? Searching the thread using "Thoglette" and "*Thoglette" I got only a few hits -

Once you get into the nitty gritty Google is better than the internal search, but it's still a struggle. I'm on the road at the moment but I'll collect up what I've got on the weekend (remind me via PM Monday if I forget).

Also, just in case no-one's told you (they well bloody should have), http://scholar.google.com is seriously useful for researching, particularly as you can follow trails of citation once you've found a half decent/relevant paper.

[BobtheBuilder]

I'm on the road at the moment but I'll collect up what I've got on the weekend (remind me via PM Monday if I forget).

The Hansard of the Senate Committee was very enlightening - a good summary of a few major standpoints. Many thanks again.

I'm off tomorrow paddling for four days, so will look forward to reading more when I return.

[Thoglette]

The Hansard of the Senate Committee was very enlightening - a good summary of a few major standpoints. Many thanks again.

Yes, it's clear they're not even talking about the same things.

I'm off tomorrow paddling for four days, so will look forward to reading more when I return.

You lucky bastard. The only paddling I'll be doing is in the mud