RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Assessing disparities in injury is crucial for injury prevention and for evaluating injury prevention strategies, but efforts have been hampered by missing data. This study aimed to show the utility and reliability of the injury surveillance system as a trustworthy resource for examining disparities by generating multiple imputed companion datasets. METHODS: We employed data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP) for the period 2014-2018. A comprehensive simulation study was conducted to identify the appropriate strategy for addressing missing data limitations in NEISS-AIP. To evaluate the imputation performance more quantitatively, a new method based on Brier Skill Score (BSS) was developed to assess the accuracy of predictions by different approaches. We selected the multiple imputations by fully conditional specification (FCS MI) to generate the imputed companion data to NEISS-AIP 2014-2018. We further assessed health disparities systematically in nonfatal assault injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments (EDs) by race and ethnicity, location of injury and sex. RESULTS: We found for the first time that significantly higher age-adjusted nonfatal assault injury rates for ED visits per 100,000 population occurred among non-Hispanic Black persons (1306.8, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 660.1 - 1953.5), in public settings (286.3, 95% CI: 183.2 - 389.4) and for males (603.5, 95% CI: 409.4 - 797.5). We also observed similar trends in age-adjusted rates (AARs) by different subgroups for non-Hispanic Black persons, injuries occurring in public settings, and for males: AARs of nonfatal assault injury increased significantly from 2014 through 2017, then declined significantly in 2018. CONCLUSIONS: Nonfatal assault injury imposes significant health care costs and productivity losses for millions of people each year. This study is the first to specifically look at health disparities in nonfatal assault injuries using multiply imputed companion data. Understanding how disparities differ by various groups may lead to the development of more effective initiatives to prevent such injury.
Asunto(s)
Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital , Costos de la Atención en Salud , Masculino , Humanos , Estados Unidos/epidemiología , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Vigilancia de la PoblaciónRESUMEN
PURPOSE: To measure the risk of a subsequent assault-related emergency department (ED) visit in assault injured adolescents as compared to those who initially presented for non-assault related injuries. METHODS: This was a historical cohort study of youth (ages 10-18 years) seen at two pediatric EDs between 2016 and 2019. Participants were included if their visit had an International Classification of Diseases-10 code for assaultive injury or accidental injury (motor vehicle collisions (MVC) and sports injuries). We calculated the rate of a subsequent ED visit for an assault-related injury, and then used survival analysis to compare time to subsequent ED visit with an assault-related injury between study and comparison groups. RESULTS: A total of 6125 adolescents met inclusion criteria (Assault: n = 2782, 45.4%; MVC: n = 1834, 29.9%; Sports n = 1509, 24.6%). The overall rate per 100 person years of a subsequent assault-related ED visit was 5.6 (n = 344). Patients who initially presented with an assault-related injury had an increased adjusted relative risk (aRR) of return for a subsequent ED visit for an assault-related injury when compared to MVC patients (aRR 17.6 [95% CI: 9.6, 32.2]). Kaplan-Meier time to event analysis found that patients in the assault injury group have a higher probability of a subsequent ED visit for an assault-related injury compared to patients in the MVC injury group (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR): 17.7 [95% CI: 9.67, 32.42]). DISCUSSION: Adolescents injured by assault are more likely to return to the ED for a subsequent assault-related injury compared to adolescents who initially present with non-assault-related injuries.
Asunto(s)
Víctimas de Crimen , Heridas y Lesiones , Humanos , Adolescente , Niño , Estudios de Cohortes , Violencia , Factores de Riesgo , Servicio de Urgencia en Hospital , Estudios RetrospectivosRESUMEN
Research suggests that assault-related injuries known by the police significantly differ from those known by healthcare providers, but the magnitude and nature of these differences are poorly understood. To address this gap, our study examined the empirical differences between assault-related injuries reported to police and treated by healthcare providers. In June of 2021, we analyzed the National Crime Victimization Survey (1993-2019) to estimate the prevalence of police reporting and healthcare use among 5093 nonfatal victimizations that caused injury and were either reported to the police or treated by healthcare in the United States. Quasi-Poisson models identified the factors associated with whether people who sustained the injuries used healthcare (v. only reported to police) and reported to police (v. only used healthcare). Among victimizations that caused only minor injuries, 43% involved only a police report, 11% involved only healthcare, and 46% involved both services. Among victimizations that caused serious injuries, 14% involved only a police report, 13% involved only healthcare, and 73% involved both services. Whether people with violent injuries used healthcare (v. only reported to police) and reported to police (v. only used healthcare) was significantly associated with 13 different person- and incident-level factors. The number and nature of assault-related injuries reported to law enforcement significantly differ from those treated by healthcare providers. Therefore, public health efforts to link police and healthcare data are warranted and recommended.
Asunto(s)
Acoso Escolar , Víctimas de Crimen , Heridas y Lesiones , Crimen , Personal de Salud , Humanos , Policia , Estados Unidos/epidemiología , Heridas y Lesiones/epidemiologíaRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Traumatic injuries remain one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Patients who survive traumatic injuries but return to the emergency department with repeat injuries are said to suffer from injury recidivism. Numerous studies have described trends in injury recidivism using trauma registry and survey data. To our knowledge, no prior study has leveraged electronic medical record (EMR) data to characterize injury recidivism. The EMR is potentially more comprehensive as it contains details of patients who visited the emergency department after injury but did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the trauma registry. Such injuries could be predictive of future recidivism. We therefore aimed to describe patterns of injury recidivism seen at a Level 1 trauma center using the EMR. METHODS: A retrospective review was conducted of all injury-related encounters between January 2016 and December 2019. Manual review was conducted of all recidivistic encounters with < 11 months between encounters to ensure the recidivistic encounter was not a sequela of the index visit. A general estimating equation logistic regression adjusted for age, race, sex, and insurance payor, estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between injury mechanism and odds of recidivistic encounter. RESULTS: A total of 20,566 index encounters was included during the study period. Of the 20,566 encounters, 7.6% (n = 1570) had a recidivistic encounter during the study period, half of which (n = 781) occurred within the first year of the index encounter. An over two-fold increased odds of recidivism was observed for blunt assault encounters (OR 2.53, 95% CI 2.03-3.15) and unintentional falls (OR 2.10, 95% CI 1.76-2.52). For both mechanisms, this increase was observed across the three years following the index encounter. CONCLUSIONS: Our study found that patients with assault injuries have the highest odds of injury recidivism and assault-related recidivistic encounters. These results demonstrate the feasibility and utility of incorporating EMR data, and suggest that the development of targeted interventions focused on mitigating assault injuries, such as hospital-based violence intervention programs, should be considered in our region.