title: Injury surveillance using hospital discharge abstracts coded by external cause of injury (E code).
abstract: Current knowledge of the patterns of injury in the United States derive principally from mortality statistics that constitute less than 0.1% of all injuries reaching medical attention. There presently exists no national system for the surveillance of nonfatal injuries. To illustrate the usefulness and feasibility of conducting injury surveillance using E-coded hospital discharge data, we examined the surveillance data from the Massachusetts Statewide Childhood Injury Prevention Program. By using E-coded hospital discharge data, we increased the number of cases available for analysis by 40-fold over deaths, and we were able to describe the epidemiologic characteristics of the important causes of nonfatal childhood injuries. We therefore propose the development of a national injury surveillance system based on the Uniform Hospital Discharge Data Set coded by both the nature of the injury (N Code) and external cause (E Code).
authors.affiliation: Injury Prevention Center, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Guyer
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Berenholz
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Gallagher
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001265:Athletic Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008404:Massachusetts / Q000453:epidemiology; D010351:Patient Discharge; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*