I recently read an excellent report done by the Canadian Playground Advisory (Thanks Jeromy Morningstar, for hooking me up).  The essay is entitled “Impact Attenuation Values and The Prevention of Head Injuries in Children’s Playgrounds”.  It’s heavy reading, but it makes a strong argument for re-evaluating the current CSA standards for playground fall heights.

Basically, the main points of the article are:

1) Surfacing is the most important component of a safe playground, because 68% of injuries that occur on public playgrounds are based on falling and making contact with the surface below.

2) Based on research from the automotive industry and the NFL (leaders in head injury research), current playground safety thresholds (1000 HIC and 200 GMAX) are not adequate.  The most recent research shows that at 1000 HIC there is a 16% chance of a life-threatening head injury and suggests that 700 HIC (the automotive standard) is a more appropriate threshold (570 HIC for children under 5).

3) Concussions are actually a pretty serious injury. The most comprehensive data on the subject suggests that concussions can lead to clinical depression, mental illness and premature death based on a study conducted on former football players and boxers.

This is really interesting information. Especially for me, since we just drop-tested 12 playgrounds for CSA safety compliance  (big thanks to SofSurfaces for lending us the Triax 2000).   We filmed the results, which we will release in an upcoming documentary entitled Fall Height.  The results of our testing are that much more interesting when the above information is taken into consideration.

The automotive industry, which clearly has deeper pockets for testing than the playground industry dictates that, to reduce the chance of a life-threatening injury, an impact should not exceed 700 HIC for an adult and 570 HIC for a child under 5.

If the most current research shows that 700 HIC is the max impact that can be sustained by an ADULT skull to reduce a life threatening injury, then why does the playground standard say 1000 HIC is the max impact for a children’s developing skull?  I think the playground standard needs to be updated.

Check out the Fall Height Trailer Here: