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Causes of Injury

Several organizations regularly release information on the causes of brain injury:

From the Brain Injury Association of America:

The leading causes of TBI are:

• Falls (28%);

• Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (20%); and

• Assaults (11%).¹

Blasts are a leading cause of TBI for active duty military personnel in war zones.²

² Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC). [unpublished]. Washington (DC): U.S. Department of Defense; 2005.

For more facts, statistics and symptoms from the Brain Injury Association of America:  Causes of Brain Injury

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

The leading causes of TBI are

• Falls

• Motor vehicle-traffic

• Assaults (Langlois et al. 2004)

Firearm use is the leading cause of death related to TBI (CDC 1999b).

Firearms cause about 10% of all TBIs, but they account for 44% of TBI-related deaths (CDC 1999b).

Nine out of 10 people with a firearm-related TBI die (CDC 1999b).

Nearly two-thirds of firearm-related TBIs are classified as suicidal in intent (CDC 1999b).

TBI: General Fact Sheet (pdf document)

Other sources for Cause Information:

MedLine - Health news of all sorts from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/  Hint: search for "tbi" and find a wealth of information.

From the Ohio Trauma Registry (OTR), reported to the Ohio Department of Public Safety:

• The top 15 causes for trauma (reported to the OTR 1999 - 2002) are:

  Fall (NEC/NOS), Fall Same Level, MVC NOS-driver, Fall on Stair/Step, Injury-NOS, Loss Control MVC-driver, Fall-1 Level to Other, MVC NOS-passenger, Pedestrian Struck, Fall from Ladder, Fall from Other,  Struck by Object/Person, Unarmed Fight or Brawl, MVC w/Object-driver, Assult-Cutting Instrument

• 86% were injuries suffered as a result of blunt force mechanisms, 8% penetrating injuries, 3% burns, 3% unknown.

Youth Violence Prevention

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/yvfacts.htm

* Development of this section of our website was made possible through a grant from the Ohio Department of Public Safety / EMS Division.