Epidemiology of unintentional drowning incidents of visitors at lake mead national recreation area, 2000-2010

The purpose of this cross-sectional design study was to develop baseline data on trends and distribution of unintentional drowning incidents and risk factors contributing to fatalities during 2000-2010, at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The three"Es" injury prevention conceptual model served as the framework for this study. The data collected were based on date of incident, time of injury, air temperature, gender, age, race/ethnicity, place of residence, predeath recreational activities. Geographic Information System(GIS) was used to plot drowning incidents that occurred at Lake Mead National Recreation Area during 2000-2010. Descriptive statistics were used to organize, describe, summarize, and simplify the data. Correlational analyses were used to describe the sample only, rather than infer, since sample was not a probability sample of a larger population. The results revealed that male visitors were victims of 86% of the fatalities during 2000-2010 at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Most of the drowning incidents occurred among visitors between 25-44 years old. The relationship between unintentional drowning and usage of personal flotation device was statistically significant (r=-.376,p<0.001). In addition, the relationship between age and alcohol use was statistically significant (r=.196,p<0.05). The study recommended several priorities for prevention and planning. The results from this study should be used to inform the development of hypotheses for case control studies designed to establish risk factors for drowning.