Trauma Facts

Introduction

The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma is committed to improving the care of the injured patient through education and research. This section of our website is designed to provide lay persons as well as health care workers with information about injury in the United States and around the world. It is critical that every effort be made to decrease the impact of injury on the global burden of the disease. To that end, injury prevention is an invaluable part of our efforts. Injury is a major public health problem. In the United States, injury accounts for over 150,000 deaths and over 3 million non-fatal injuries per year. Around the world, injury is responsible for more than 5 million deaths per year. Many millions more are injured. The events which result in injury are not random or unpredictable. Injury can be prevented and many lives saved by learning more about the causes of injury and implementing appropriate injury prevention strategies. Many of these strategies are well-established, easily available and relatively inexpensive, such as seat belts and helmets.

"Crashes NOT accidents."

In the United States:

• Trauma is the leading cause of death for individuals up to the age of 45 years (Table of Causes of Death)
• Trauma is the fourth leading cause of death overall for all ages.
• There are almost 40,000 homicide and suicide deaths each year in the US.
• There were over 30,000 suicides in the US in 2001
• Suicide Fact Sheet from the NVIPC at CDC
• There were 43,443 deaths and 2.7 million injuries from motor vehicle crashes in the US in 2005. Traffic Safety Facts, 2005 from the NHTSA

Around the world:

• Road traffic crashes kill 1.2 million people annually around the world (3242 people a day) 90% of these deaths are in low or middle income countries
• Estimated cost: $518 billion globally
• Predicted to become the third largest contributor to the global burden of disease by 2020
• World Report Summary on Road Traffic Injury Prevention, 2004, WHO and the World Bank.
• View full World Report report at: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_traffic/world_report/en/index.html

Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is the single largest cause of death from injury in the United States:

• 1,000,000 people with TBI per year in US:
• 230,00 hospitalized
• 50,000 die (one third of all trauma deaths)
• 80 to 90,000 with long term disability

There are over 5 million people in the US living with disability from TBI at an estimated cost of over $37.8 billion per year.

Fact Sheet from the NVIPC at CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/tbi.htm
Ref: Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: A Report to Congress, CDC, Dec 1999