Information Sheet

August 2009

 

NCHS Data on Injuries

 

PDF version (189 KB)

About NCHS

The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation's principal health statistics agency, providing data to identify and address health issues. NCHS compiles statistical information to help guide public health and health policy decisions.

Collaborating with other public and private health partners, NCHS employs a variety of data collection mechanisms to obtain accurate information from multiple sources. This process provides a broad perspective to help us understand the population's health, influences on health, and health outcomes.

NCHS Injury Data

Injury takes a toll on the health of the population and imposes social and economic costs on society. NCHS data are used to identify and track changes in injury-related health problems. NCHS data on deaths, hospitalizations, emergency department and other ambulatory visits associated with injuries document the impact of this problem on the health of Americans. Policy makers use these data to design and direct health intervention efforts at the national and local levels.
NCHS data sets classify injuries in two ways—by how the injury occurred (cause) and by the health problem associated with the injury (diagnosis):

• Cause is characterized by whether the injury was intentional (e.g., unintentional, suicide, homicide) and by the manner in which the injury occurred such as by a motor vehicle, firearms, poisoning, suffocation, or a fall (mechanism).
• Injury diagnoses describe both the nature of the injury (e.g., fracture, internal injury, and open wound) and the body region affected by the injury (e.g., head, chest, and extremity).

 

Source: National Vital Statistics System (2006), National Hospital Discharge Survey (2006), National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (2006), National Health Interview Survey (2006-2007)

 

Injuries in the United States

Injuries are among the leading causes of death in the United States. Mortality data from 2006 show:

• Unintentional injuries were the leading cause of death for those 1- 44 years of age, and the 5th leading cause of death for all ages.
• Suicide and homicide ranked 11th and 15th, respectively, among causes of death for all ages.
• Sixty-eight percent of injury deaths were unintentional, while 19 percent were suicides and 10 percent homicides

Injuries cause a relatively small number of deaths compared with the number of injuries seen in hospitals and emergency departments. In 2006, for each death by injury, there were nearly 11 times as many hospitalizations and 179 times as many emergency department visits. Determining how an injury occurs is the first step towards preventing future injuries.

 

How do injury deaths occur?

• Motor vehicle traffic accidents were responsible for 24 percent of injury deaths, followed by poisoning (21 percent), and firearms (17 percent).

 

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2006, National Vital Statistics Report Vol. 57, No. 14: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009.

 

How do non-fatal injuries occur?

• Falls accounted for 25 percent of non-fatal injuries in 2006.

 

What part of the body is affected?

• The body region specified most often for injury deaths was the head and neck. Nine out of ten head and neck injuries were classified as traumatic brain injuries (TBI).
• In 2006, TBI resulted in 53,000 deaths, 210,000 hospitalizations, and 330,000 initial emergency department visits.

 

Source: National Hospital Discharge Survey (2006).

 

Nature of injury

Data on the nature of injury provide important information on health care utilization and assist in targeting prevention strategies.

• Fracture accounted for 53 percent of hospitalized injuries. Among adults 65 years and older, hip fractures were mentioned in 38 percent of hospitalizations and in 15 percent of injury deaths.

 

Activities and places associated with injury

Knowing what an injured person was doing and where his or her injury occurred is important for designing prevention programs. Data from 2006-2007 show:

• Home was the leading place of injury occurrence, accounting for 47 percent of the respondent-reported non-fatal, medically attended injury episodes.
• More than one-third of respondent-reported non-fatal, medically attended injury episodes occurred while a person was engaged in leisure activities including sports.

 

Injury Data Sources

NCHS data systems are integral to collecting accurate and timely data on injuries and other health issues. Injury data highlight NCHS’ ability and capacity to collect comprehensive data from its multiple survey systems. Data sets, documentation, presentations and publications related to injury can be downloaded from Injury Data and Resources Website. Sources for injury data include:

 

National Health Care Surveys - a family of health care provider surveys, obtaining information about the facilities that supply health care, the services rendered, and the characteristics of the patients served. NHCS surveys hospitals, office-based physician practices, emergency and outpatient departments, ambulatory surgery centers, nursing homes, and home health and hospice agencies. These surveys provide a picture of how the delivery system works, and provide an opportunity to learn about patients, their illnesses, and treatments. Visit the NCHS Website.

National Vital Statistics System - collects mortality information from death certificates in all 50 States and the District of Columbia, including characteristics of the decedent and underlying and contributing causes of death. Visit the NVSS Website.

National Health Interview Survey - collects data on all medically attended injuries and poisonings occurring to any family member during the 3-month period prior to the interview. Information is available about the external cause and nature of the injury or poisoning episode, the activity that the person was doing at the time of the injury or poisoning episode, and the place of occurrence. Information is also obtained from the respondent describing how the person was injured or poisoned. Most of this information is available on injuries for data years beginning with 1997. Visit the NHIS Website.

 

Challenges and Future Opportunities

• Work with State vital statistics offices and physicians, medical examiners and coroners that certify the cause of death to improve the level of detail reported on death certificates on the circumstances of the injury. Encourage certifiers to utilize the space that has been provided in the new standard death certificate for the circumstances of injury death which includes a checkbox for transportation-related deaths.
• Encourage States to mandate external cause of injury codes in all State-wide hospital and emergency department data systems. Improved data will assist in development and implementation of prevention efforts.
• Through the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics, define criteria for developing valid indicators of injury incidence to be used for international comparisons and develop criteria for selecting a main injury among multiple injuries contributing to death.

For further information about NCHS and its programs, visit the NCHS Website, or call the Office of Planning, Budget and Legislation at 301-458-4100. For further information on Injury resources, visit the Injury Data and Resources Website