Often, injuries can be controlled by either
preventing an event that causes injury or lessening
the impact of such an event. This can occur
through education, engineering and design of
safety products, enactment and enforcement of
policies and laws, economic incentives, and
improvements in emergency care. Some examples
include the design, oversight, and use of car safety
seats and seatbelts, workplace regulations regarding
safety practices, vouchers for items such as
smoke alarms, and tax incentives for fitting home
pools with fences.
There were over 41 million injury-related
emergency department (ED) visits in 2004.
Among females of all ages, nearly 33 percent of all
ED visits were injury-related, compared to
43 percent of all ED visits by males. This
represents an annual rate of 13.3 injury-related
visits per 100 females compared to 15.4 visits per
100 males (data not shown). Among females, the
highest rate of injury-related ED visits occurred
among those aged 75 years and older; however,
due to the age distribution of the population,
they represented only 9.3 percent of all female
injury-related ED visits.
Unintentional and intentional injuries
represented a higher proportion of ED visits for
men than women in 2004. Among women and
men aged 18 years and older, unintentional
injuries accounted for 20.1 and 27.2 per 100 ED
visits, respectively, while intentional injuries
represented 1.7 and 3.0 per 100, respectively.
Among both women and men, the two most
common causes of injury were falls and motor
vehicle crashes.
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PIE CHART: Injury-Related Emergency Department Visits for Females, by Age, 2003
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HORIZONTAL BAR CHART: Injury-Related Emergency Department Visits Among Adults Aged 18 and Older, by Sex and Mechanism, 2003
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