Leading Causes of Nonfatal Injury Module Help

The WISQARS' Leading Causes of Nonfatal Injury module is an interactive database that allows users to visualize the ranking of leading causes of nonfatal injuries treated in emergency departments (EDs) by age and sex of the injury patient, intent of injury, and disposition when released from the ED.

Data comes from an expansion of the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) operated by the U.S. Consumer Safety Commission (CPSC). The expanded system, called the NEISS All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP), collects data on external causes of nonfatal injuries and poisonings from a national representative sample of up to 100 hospital emergency departments in the United States.

Getting Started

To customize the visualizations displayed when you access the module, you will begin by clicking the "Change Filters" button near the top, right of the screen.

The Data Filters screen will allow you to make some key decisions about the data you want to view—such as data years, intent of injury, disposition, and demographic variables—to create visualizations. Below is a list of the data options available.

Data Filters: Data Years

You can request leading causes of injury charts for data from 2001 and later. If you want a report for a single year, enter the same year in both fields under "Data Years". Be aware that selecting a large number of years at a time may require a long response time.

Data Filters: Number of Causes

Users can select the number of causes they want displayed anywhere from the Top 5 to the Top 20. The default number of rankings is 10. Sometimes a specific cause may not fall in the top 10 causes. If you're looking for a specific cause, you may need to increase the rankings to ensure the report displays the cause you want.

Data Filters: Intent of Injury

This option allows you to limit your leading causes of injury charts to specific categories. You can choose among:

• All Injuries.
• Unintentional injuries: Injury or poisoning that is not inflicted by deliberate means. Includes those injuries and poisonings described as unintended or "accidental&qout;, regardless of whether the injury was inflicted by oneself or by another person. Also, includes injury or poisoning where no indication of intent to harm was documented in the ED record.
• Violence Related injuries: Injury or poisoning resulting from a deliberate violent act inflicted on oneself or by another person with the intent to harm, injure or kill. This category includes confirmed and suspected assaults, legal intervention (i.e., injury to a person caused by police or other law enforcement officer while in the line of duty), and confirmed or suspected self-harm.

Notice that the color of the boxes in each chart will change with respect to your chosen intent.

Data Filters: Disposition

This option allows you to request nonfatal injury charts by disposition or where the individual was moved to after being admitted to the Emergency Department. One of the following dispositions must be selected:

• All cases
• Treated and Release: This option refers to patients treated for an injury in a United States hospital emergency department and then released without being hospitalized or transferred for specialized physical or psychological care.
• Transferred: This option refers to patients initially treated for an injury in a United States hospital emergency department and then transferred for specialized physical or psychological care.
• Hospitalized: This option refers to patients initially treated for an injury in a United States hospital emergency department and then hospitalized for specialized physical or psychological care.
• Transferred or Hospitalized
• Observed/Left AMA/Unknown: This option refers to patients that were held for observation due to an injury in a United States hospital emergency department, left against medical advice, or the disposition is unknown.

Data Filters: Demographics

Sex

You can request to see leading causes of death or injury for:

• Both sexes (the default), which includes unknown sex, or
• Males only, or
• Females only.

Age

The age formatting option allows you to select the range of the age groups you want displayed in the chart. Separate formats allow you to create smaller age ranges for young adults and for the elderly:

• 1 - 14 in 5-year groups; 15 - 65+ in 10-year groups (the default)
• 1 - 24 in 5-year groups; 25 - 65+ in 10-year groups
• 1 - 14 in 5-year groups; 15 - 85+ in 10-year groups
• 1 - 24 in 5-year groups; 15 - 85+ in 10-year groups

You can also select a custom age range (in years). This option is particularly useful for requesting information on a specific group whose ages do not coincide with the fixed 5 or 10-year age increments, such as teenagers (i.e., ages 13 to 19). To request data covering a single year of age, simply repeat the age in both selection boxes (e.g., 18 to 18).

Leading Causes of Nonfatal Injury Charts

When the page loads, users will see the default leading causes of nonfatal injury chart showing the number of injuries for the top major causes of injury from greatest to least. The data is displayed using a box matrix/grid and each box is color coded to indicate injuries caused by Assault, Self-Harm, or Unintentionally. The bottom of the grid allows users to change the format of the data (i.e., table, chart), the statistics (i.e., percentage, crude rate), and the cause of injury being highlighted.The default leading causes of death chart shows the number of deaths for the top major causes of death from greatest to least.

A second changeable bar chart beneath will focus on one age group and rank the injuries from highest to lowest counts for the selected group. At the bottom of the chart, users can change the format of the data (i.e., table, chart), and the age group. By selecting the table option, users can obtain percentages and advanced statistics on the stability of the national estimates provided within the chart.