WISQARS™ Module Enhancements to Cost of Injury Reports

WISQARS™ Module Enhancements to Cost of Injury Reports

The module provides cost estimates for injury deaths, hospitalizations, and emergency department visits where the patient was treated and released. The module allows users to create reports of: medical costs (e.g., treatment and rehabilitation), work loss costs (e.g., lost wages, fringe benefits, and self-reported household services), and combined costs (medical plus work loss) based on a number of variables including: intent and mechanism (cause) of injury, body region and diagnosis of injury, geographic location (for deaths only), sex, and age.

With the new enhancements, users are given two options:

(1)  generate cost estimates using national fatal and nonfatal data or

(2)  generate cost estimates using their own case counts.

The second option allows users to obtain total lifetime medical and work loss cost estimate for geographic areas (e.g., counties) or groups of interest (e.g., hospitalized patients with traumatic brain injuries) based on average costs from national data. Using the second option, cost estimates also can be adjusted for inflation and expressed in more current or previous year’s prices.

Examples of cost of injury data available are presented below. WISQARS Cost of Injury Reports from national data are based on lifetime medical and lifetime work loss costs in 2005. This was the most recent year of unit cost data available at the time the module was developed. NCIPC plans to update these estimates to more recent years in the future.

In addition to cost of injury reports, users can use the WISQARS^TM system, to sort, view and create customized fatal injury, nonfatal injury, and violent death data reports. Examples of reports include:

• Fatal injury reports providing the total number of injury deaths and death rates by intent and mechanism (cause) of injury, region or state, race/ethnicity, sex, and age.
      
• Leading cause of death reports illustrating the impact of injury-related deaths in the U.S. compared to other leading causes of death.    
• Years of potential life lost (YPLL) reports showing the impact of premature death resulting from injury compared to other leading causes of premature death.
• Color-coded fatal injury maps showing patterns of county-level injury death rates across specified geographic areas (national, regional, and state level) to help users identify populations at high risk of injury by mechanism (cause) and intent of injury.  
• Violent death reports providing insights into incidents of violence, characteristics of victims, characteristics of suspects, and characteristics of suicide victims suspected of a recent homicide.  
• Nonfatal injury reports providing estimates of injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments (EDs) by intent and mechanism (cause) of injury, race/ethnicity, sex, and disposition when released from the ED (hospitalized, transferred for specialized care, treated and released).  
• Leading cause of nonfatal injury reports ranking leading causes of nonfatal injuries by age and sex of the injured patient, intent of injury, and disposition when released from the ED.  

Researchers, the media, public health professionals, and the public can use WISQARS™ data to learn more about the public health and economic burden associated with unintentional and violence-related injury in the United States. WISQARS™ can be used to provide evidence of the scope and impact of the injury problem; characterize, compare and monitor trends in fatal and non-fatal injuries; identify persons at risk of injury; and provide reliable surveillance data for program and policy decisions.

For more information or to access WISQARS™ visit:  www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars

WISQARS™ is your source for U.S. injury statistics