title: Analysis of head injury admission trends in an urban American pediatric trauma center.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Head injury is the leading cause of death in children. Child safety legislation and risk-specific intervention programs have flourished to mitigate the incidence of injury to children. This analysis documents the trend in head injury to children in a specific institution.
  
  
  METHODS
  Analysis of 5,003 head injury admissions to a pediatric trauma center over thirteen years was performed. Admission rates were calculated using the appropriate population denominator from census data. Poisson regression analysis was applied to estimate the relative risk of head injury admission by year in different age, sex, mechanism of injury and severity group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There has been a 70% decline in the head injury admission rate since 1989, consistent with regional and national data. The decline was present in all mechanisms of injury and age groups except for less than 1 year of age. The decline in total trauma admissions over the same time period was 50% and the decline in total hospital admission was 10%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pediatric head injury has significantly declined in the last 13 years at a Level I pediatric trauma center.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Children's National Medical Center, Washington D.C. 20010, USA.
authors.forename: Todd A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Ponsky
authors.forename: Martin R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Eichelberger
authors.forename: Eden
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cardozo
authors.forename: Zhihuan J
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Geraldine L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Pratsch
authors.forename: Sara E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Thuma-Croom
authors.forename: Kurt D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Newman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D004219:District of Columbia / Q000453:epidemiology; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000639:trends*; D014193:Trauma Centers