Understanding and Identifying potential risks for young people at outdoor music fesitvals

Researchers: Alison Hutton, Jamie Ranse, Paul Arbon.

The aim of this research was to understand the nature of patient presentations at music festivals around Australia. This study used a minimum data set developed by Ranse and Hutton (2012) which used four main categories of presentation type.

These being illness, injury, environmental factors and mental health. Outdoor music festivals are unique events (Gleder and Robinson, 2009), and in the mass gathering literature are espoused to have a higher incident of patient presentations than other types of mass gathering (Milsten et al, 2003). Often single events are written up, which makes it difficult to generalize to other events, therefore the aim of this research is to discuss characteristics of patient presentations of 25 outdoor music festivals across four Australian states.

The project found that more than two thirds of those who present are women. In addition males were more likely to present with injuries and women were more likely to present with illness related symptons. The environmental data includes the ingestion of drugs and alcohol. This data set showed that patients that presented to onsite care with drug and alcohol related issues had the higher rate of being transferred to hospital.

The role of on-site care in hospital avoidance at mass gathering events

Researchers: Alison Hutton, Brett Aimers, Jamie Ranse, Paul Arbon.

It is generally accepted that mass gathering events have a heightened potential to produce a higher incidence of illness, injury and therefore a subsequent increase in demand for ambulance and hospital resources. The balance between planning for mass gathering health care and maintaining adequate community resources is an emerging issue for health agencies today (Gutman, Lund & Turris, 2007).

Currently, the body of literature that examines the provision of health care at mass gatherings is under developed and may not accurately reflect the impact of on site health agencies on ‘hospital avoidance ’. St John Ambulance Australia is well positioned to contribute to this subject by exploring its role in hospital avoidance when deployed to mass gatherings.

Therefore this project aims to identify the number of patients that would have ordinarily required hospital care who were provided with end-to-end care and discharged by St John Ambulance Australia. Secondly to determine the injuries and illnesses that would ordinarily require ambulance transport from a mass gathering to hospital.

World Youth Day patient presentation characteristics

Researchers: Paul Arbon, Jamie Ranse

This project aims to establish a databases of patient presentations and mass gathering event profiles across all events during the four days of World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008, to analyze quantitative data from the event and compare findings across the WYD events and with existing predictive modeling data to provide a more sophisticated understanding of the key factors that affect patient presentations at mass gatherings.

Staying safe and healthy at schoolies

Researcher: Alison Hutton

Schoolies festivals are events that give young people the opportunity to celebrate the end of their school life. These festivals provide a ‘safe zone’ in designated alcohol‐ free areas for dance and live music. Festivals such as the Adelaide Schoolies Festival are a common phenomenon in today’s society and provide the opportunity to investigate the health protective behaviors of young people who attend mass gatherings. This pilot study provides baseline data about young people’s health safety concerns and improves the preparedness of health professionals at ass gatherings.

Context‐aware mobile decision support systems for medical emergency management in mass gatherings

Researcher: Paul Arbon

This project contributes to gaining a clearer understanding of the nature and requirements of medical emergency during mass gathering events. We will build and test a mobile real‐time decision support tool for improving the efficiency of medical decisions to strengthen Australia’s ability to manage potential health‐related hazards. This project addresses the research priorities of promoting and maintaining good health. It capitalizes on smart information use and will be benefit to mass gathering emergency.

Assessing the health and safety risk of public events. Phase 1 – Evaluation of the Event Safety Guide 1999 for medical resource allocation

Researcher: Kathryn Zeitz 

This project is an evaluation review of a current event workload planning tool for medical resource allocation, The safety event guide (1999). The project uses existing data to determine the predictive accuracy of this tool and determine its viability as a component of a risk measurement system.

Safe partying seminars evaluation

Researcher: Alison Hutton

This project will evaluate the seminars that have been provided for the secondary school students in South Australia. This seminar has been provided by the NGO organization before the schoolies season to encourage students to learn how to stay safe and healthy at the schoolies event. The students are asked to fill out the evaluation form. The result of this evaluation will be utilized to improve the seminar and will also inform young people’s understanding of safe drinking.

Celebration without hospitalization

Researcher: Alison Hutton

Schoolies Festivals are events that give young people the opportunity to celebrate the end of their school life. In Adelaide, young people celebrate Schoolies in a dry zone, however prior to entering this dry zone a substantial amount of alcohol is ingested in caravan parks, surrounding hotels and residences. Data from the 2009 St John Ambulance Australia presentations identified that 14% of young people presented to on–site care last year with an alcohol related condition and/or injury. Of that fourteen percent (14%), fifty percent (50%) of these young people were subsequently transferred and admitted to hospital. The aim of this research is to identify and explore, through the retrospective accounts of 60‐80 young people, the ways that young people prepare to minimize and/or be free from alcohol‐related harm at Schoolies. The knowledge generated will be used to make recommendations about the development of health information strategies that aim to reduce the number of young people requiring hospitalisation due to alcohol related injury at Schoolies.

Chain of survival at mass gatherings: A case series of resuscitation events

Researchers: Jamie Ranse, Kathryn Zeitz

At a large public event, or mass gathering, various factors influence patient presentations, which bring challenges to patient care. The chain of survival has been investigated in the prehospital setting; however this has not explicitly included the mass-gathering environment. This study sought to determine the facilitators and barriers to the chain of survival at mass gatherings.

This case series research was exploratory and descriptive, using the analysis of personal experiences of resuscitation. Participants were members of St John Ambulance Australia who had participated actively in a resuscitation event in 2007. Telephone interviews were used as a means of data collection. Participant narrative was recorded electronically, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically using a well established human science approach.

The thematic analysis revealed five main themes and a number of sub-themes. Four of the main themes were aligned easily with the four chain of survival links. The remaining main theme outlined a new link in the chain of survival of specific importance to mass gatherings, ‘early planning’. Additionally, a number of sub-themes were identified, which exemplified various facilitators and barriers to the chain of survival in this environment.

This research highlights various barriers and facilitators to the chain of survival in the mass-gathering environment. Additionally, the unique “early planning” link in the chain of survival as described in this research highlights the importance of a preparatory phase for responders at mass gatherings.

Outputs:

	Publication (Prehospital Disaster Medicine)
	Summary (Jamie Ranse Website)