New Research Suggests That A Shift Toward a Cashless Society Might Lead To Fewer Kids Eating Coins
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A new research conducted by the UK’s National Health Service has uncovered an unexpected benefit in the country’s shift toward becoming a cashless society. Interestingly, the shift to contactless payments has seemingly decreased the number of children who are visiting hospitals after swallowing physical coins.
The National Health Service published its research in a paper titled “Coin-cidence? Have cashless payments reduced the incidence of upper aerodigestive foreign body insertion.” In the paper, the authors compared the rise of contactless payments against a fall in foreign body (FB) retrieval procedures, specifically the ones that involved the alimentary tract, nasal cavity, and respiratory tract.
The UK Hospital Episode Statistics between 2000 and 2022 shows that the fall in cash payments, which started around 2012, saw a “statistically significant” decline in the number of removal procedures.
The paper says that the frequency of alimentary tract FB removal procedures went down by 27.78% per year, while respiratory FB removal procedures dropped by 4.83 per year. As for nasal cavity FB removals, they went down by as much as 52.82 per year.
Experts Believe That Multiple Factors Contributed To The Decline
In more than 75% of cases where children under the age of six swallowed FBs, they were swallowing coins, according to the research.
Endoscopies for FBs also revealed that 66% of all ingested FBs were coins. This does not come as a surprise as they are thin, round, and easily accessible, but it did represent a problem which is now going away thanks to the fact that they are seeing less and less use. Furthermore, this should help save a lot of money for the NHS, as a recent study revealed that the cost of FB removal is around £2,880,148 a year.
The study still noted that the trends are likely multifactorial, as there have also been major changes in public health policies, education programs aimed at parents and children, as well as shifts in population behavior which are considered unrelated to payment methods.
All of this could have played a part in the dropping figures, but the researchers have still concluded that the data suggests an association between the introduction of contactless payments and a reduction in the number of FB retrieval procedures.
