IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v13y2016i8p763-d74820.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mortality from Unspecified Unintentional Injury among Individuals Aged 65 Years and Older by U.S. State, 1999–2013

Author

Listed:
  • Xunjie Cheng

    (Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Yue Wu

    (Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Jie Yao

    (College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Xili, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China)

  • David C. Schwebel

    (Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA)

  • Guoqing Hu

    (Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China)

Abstract

Introduction: Recent changes in unspecified unintentional injury mortality for the elderly by U.S. state remain unreported. This study aims to examine U.S. state variations in mortality from unspecified unintentional injury among Americans aged 65+, 1999–2013; Methods: Using mortality rates from the U.S. CDC’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™), we examined unspecified unintentional injury mortality for older adults aged 65+ from 1999 to 2013 by state. Specifically, the proportion of unintentional injury deaths with unspecified external cause in the data was considered. Linear regression examined the statistical significance of changes in proportion of unspecified unintentional injury from 1999 to 2013; Results: Of the 36 U.S. states with stable mortality rates, over 8-fold differences were observed for both the mortality rates and the proportions of unspecified unintentional injury for Americans aged 65+ during 1999–2013. Twenty-nine of the 36 states showed reductions in the proportion of unspecified unintentional injury cause, with Oklahoma (−89%), Massachusetts (−86%) and Oregon (−81%) displaying the largest changes. As unspecified unintentional injury mortality decreased, mortality from falls in 28 states and poisoning in 3 states increased significantly. Mortality from suffocation in 15 states, motor vehicle traffic crashes in 12 states, and fire/burn in 8 states also decreased; Conclusions: The proportion of unintentional injuries among older adults with unspecified cause decreased significantly for many states in the United States from 1999 to 2013. The reduced proportion of unspecified injury has implications for research and practice. It should be considered in state-level trend analysis during 1999–2013. It also suggests comparisons between states for specific injury mortality should be conducted with caution, as large differences in unspecified injury mortality across states and over time could create bias for specified injury mortality comparisons.

Suggested Citation

  • Xunjie Cheng & Yue Wu & Jie Yao & David C. Schwebel & Guoqing Hu, 2016. "Mortality from Unspecified Unintentional Injury among Individuals Aged 65 Years and Older by U.S. State, 1999–2013," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-8, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:8:p:763-:d:74820
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/8/763/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/8/763/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:8:p:763-:d:74820. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.