Trampoline Park Injury Trends

Abstract

Objectives: Trampolines are an important cause of childhood injury and focus of injury prevention. Understanding and prevention of trampoline park injury is constrained by inadequate exposure data to estimate the at-risk population. This study aimed to measure trampoline park injury incidence and time trends using industry data.

Methods: Cross-sectional study to retrospectively analyze reported injuries and exposure in 18 trampoline parks operating in Australia and the Middle East, from 2017 to 2019. Exposure was derived from ticket sales and expressed as jumper hours. Exposure-adjusted incidence was measured using marginalized 0-inflated Poisson modeling and time trends using Joinpoint regression.

Results: There were 13 256 injured trampoline park users reported from 8 387 178 jumper hours; 11% sustained significant injury. Overall, trampoline park injuries occurred at a rate of 1.14 injuries per 1000 jumper hours (95% confidence intervals 1.00 to 1.28), with rates highest for high-performance (2.11/1000 jumper hours, 1.66 to 2.56) and inflatable bag or foam pit (1.91/1000 jumper hours, 1.35 to 2.50) jumping. Significant injuries occurred at a rate of 0.11 injuries per 1000 jumper hours (0.10 to 0.13), with rates highest for high-performance (0.29/1000 jumper hours, 0.23 to 0.36), and parkour (0.22/1000 jumper hours, 0.15 to 0.28) jumping. Overall, injury rates decreased by 0.72%/month (-1.05 to -0.40) over the study period.

Conclusions: Trampoline park injuries occur in important numbers with sometimes serious consequences. However, within these safety standard-compliant parks, exposure-adjusted estimates show injuries to be uncommon and injury rates to be declining. Further reductions are required, especially severe injuries, and this study can enhance injury prevention initiatives.