Using the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) to Identify Injury Patterns from External Causes of Injury

• Activity Number: 419
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Consulting
• Author(s): Heather Watson*+ and Madhu Iyer
• Companies: Exponent, Inc. and Exponent, Inc.
• Keywords: pedestrian ; injury outcomes ; survey design

Abstract

External causes of injury include pedestrians injured by motor vehicles, other traffic accidents, or accidental falls. The National Inpatient Sample (NIS) is utilized to ascertain injury patterns in the general population of people injured by a specific external cause. Five to eight million inpatient hospitalization records are included in the NIS annually, and this large sample size and survey design allows for statistical analyses that are not possible with smaller data sets. This talk will concentrate on how the patient population was identified through the use of external causes of injury ICD-9-CM codes. Discussion will not only cover examples of varying external causes and resulting injury patterns, but also demonstrating how different factors, such as physical impairment or intoxication affect the prevalence of pedestrian accidents or injury outcomes.