What Can We Learn from 21 Years of School Poisonings in New Zealand?

Background: Childhood poisoning is a significant international health concern. Very little is known about trends in exposures within schools and preschools. The objectives of this study were to investigate the data recorded by the New Zealand National Poisons Centre (NPC) on these types of exposures over a 21 year period (1989 to 2009) and to determine trends and propose strategies to reduce the exposures. Methods: Call information regarding human poison exposure at preschools and schools from Jan1st 1989 to Dec 31st 2009 were extracted from the dataset held by the NPC. The number of calls received by the NPC relating to the exposures was plotted against year as totals and then categorized according to gender. The number of calls related to each substance type for each year, and the number of calls related to each age group for each year were quantified. Results: There were 3632 calls over this period. In every year studied, there were more calls relating to males than females. Household items were responsible for 31% of exposures, followed by plants (20%), industrial items (14%) and therapeutic agents (14%). Almost one quarter of all exposures occurred in the 13 year old age group. Further investigation of this group, showed that the causes of exposures included “splash” incidents (27%), “pengestion” (pen breaking in mouth and releasing contents) (16%), “exploratory” (5%) and “prank” (4%). Conclusion: Identification of these areas allows recommendations to be made including feedback to teachers about exposure risks, storage and access of science, cleaning and art supplies.