Injury Mortality†: United States, 1999–2014

This storyboard depicts injury mortality in the United States from 1999 through 2014. Mortality is characterized using the underlying cause of death which, for injury deaths, refers to the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the injury. Two concepts are included in the circumstances of an injury death: intent of injury and mechanism of injury. Intent of injury describes whether the injury was inflicted purposefully (intentional injury) and if purposeful, whether the injury was self-inflicted (suicide or self-harm) or inflicted by another person (homicide). Injuries that were not purposefully inflicted are considered unintentional (accidental) injuries. Mechanism of injury describes the source of the energy transfer that resulted in physical or physiological harm to the body. Examples of mechanisms of injury include falls, motor vehicle traffic crashes, burns, poisonings, and drownings (1,2). This storyboard allows the user to select subcategories of injury deaths based on intent and mechanism of injury. Numbers and rates are provided for the subcategory selected by the user.

The storyboard includes six dashboards. Deaths can be grouped or separated by mechanism of injury, intent of injury, and selected demographics (sex, age group, race and Hispanic origin). Drop-down boxes across the top of the dashboard control the display of the entire visualization. The dashboards feature:

• Rates: Line charts displaying trends for injury death rates. Both fixed and dynamic scale line charts are provided. The fixed scale line chart allows the user to see changes in rates relative to a predefined y-axis, while the dynamic scale line chart adjusts to maximize the visualization of the trend for the options selected. A dialog box on the left of the dashboard allows the user to select among several options for the range of y-axis values used in the fixed scale line chart.
• Numbers of deaths: A table describes numbers of injury deaths for selections made at the top of the visualization.

Dashboard 1:

• By mechanism (all intents combined)—Displays mortality by mechanism of injury (regardless of intent) for selected sex, age group, and race and Hispanic origin.

Dashboard 2:

• By intent (all mechanisms combined)—Displays mortality by intent of injury (regardless of mechanism) for selected sex, age group, and race and Hispanic origin.

Dashboard 3:

• By sex, for both mechanism and intent—Displays mortality by sex for selected mechanism of injury, intent of injury, age group, and race and Hispanic origin.

Dashboard 4:

• By age group, for both mechanism and intent—Displays mortality by age group for selected mechanism of injury, intent of injury, sex, and race and Hispanic origin.

Dashboard 5:

• By race and Hispanic origin, for both mechanism and intent—Displays mortality by race and Hispanic origin for selected mechanism of injury, intent of injury, sex, and age group.

Dashboard 6:

• By mechanism, for intent of injury and by intent, for mechanism of injury —Displays mortality by either mechanism for intent or by intent for mechanism. Includes selection boxes for year, sex, age group, and race and Hispanic origin.

NOTES:

† Data are based on information from all resident death certificates filed in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Age-adjusted death rates (per 100,000 population) are based on the 2000 U.S. standard population. Populations used for computing death rates for 2011–2014 are postcensal estimates based on the 2010 census, estimated as of July 1, 2010. Rates for census years are based on populations enumerated in the corresponding censuses. Rates for non-census years before 2010 are revised using updated intercensal population estimates and may differ from rates previously published.

‡ Causes of injury death are classified by the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD–10). Categories of injury intent and injury mechanism generally follow the categories in the external-cause-of-injury mortality matrix (1,2). Cause-of-death statistics are based on the underlying cause of death.

* Estimate does not meet standards of reliability or precision. Death rates are flagged as unreliable based on fewer than 20 deaths.

DATA SOURCE: NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, mortality data. CDC Wonder. Available from: http://wonder.cdc.gov.

Download Datasets:

• CSV Format
• Data.CDC.gov (Export to CSV, JSON, XLS, XML)

References:

1. National Center for Health Statistics. ICD–10: External cause of injury mortality matrix.
2. Miniño AM, Anderson RN, Fingerhut LA, Boudreault MA, Warner M. Deaths: Injuries, 2002. National vital statistics reports; vol 54 no 10. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2006.

Suggested citation:

Bastian B, Lu L, Miniño A, et al. Injury mortality, United States: 1999–2014. National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System. 2016.

Designed by:

Lu L, Bastian B, Chong Y.