Brain Injury Awareness Month — March 2019
Weekly / March 15, 2019 / 68(10);237
Brain Injury Awareness Month, observed each March, was established 3 decades ago to educate the public about the incidence of brain injury and the needs of persons with brain injuries and their families (1). Caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, or penetrating head injury, a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to short- or long-term changes affecting thinking, sensation, language, or emotion.
A report in this issue of MMWR found that during 2010–2016, nearly 2 million children had a TBI-related emergency department visit because of sports- and recreation-related activities (2). TBIs associated with football, bicycling, playground activities, basketball, and soccer contributed to the majority of these visits (2).
Brain Injury Awareness Month is an opportunity to encourage broader implementation of evidence-based practices to reduce pediatric TBIs and their sequelae. Primary prevention efforts aimed at the leading causes of TBI among children are critical. If a TBI occurs, CDC supports the development of return to activity plans by health care providers, customized to a child’s symptoms, as well as linkages to services for children with persistent symptoms to promote positive health outcomes (3,4). Additional information is available at https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury.
References
- Brain Injury Association of America. March is brain injury awareness month. Vienna, VA: Brain Injury Association of America; 2018. https://www.biausa.org/public-affairs/public-awareness/news/march-is-brain-injury-awareness-month
- Sarmiento K, Thomas K, Daugherty J, et al. Emergency department visits for sports- and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries among children—United States, 2010–2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:237–42.
- Lumba-Brown A, Yeates KO, Sarmiento K, et al. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline on the diagnosis and management of mild traumatic brain injury among children. JAMA Pediatr 2018;172:e182853. CrossRef PubMed
- CDC. Report to Congress: the management of TBI in children. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2018. https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/pubs/congress-childrentbi.html
Suggested citation for this article: Brain Injury Awareness Month — March 2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:237. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6810a1.
MMWR and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are
provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply
endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication.
All HTML versions of MMWR articles are generated from final proofs through an automated process. This conversion might result in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users are referred to the electronic PDF version (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr) and/or the original MMWR paper copy for printable versions of official text, figures, and tables.
Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.