title: Survival advantage associated with treatment of injury at designated trauma centers: a bivariate probit model with instrumental variables.
abstract: This article analyzes the effectiveness of designated trauma centers in Florida concerning reduction in the mortality risk of severely injured trauma victims. A bivariate probit model is used to compute the differential impact of two alternative acute care treatment sites. The alternative sites are defined as (1) a nontrauma center (NC) or (2) a designated trauma center (DTC). An instrumental-variables method was used to adjust for prehospital selection bias in addition to the influence of age, gender, race, risk of mortality, and type of injury. Treatment at a DTC was associated with a reduction of 0.13 in the probability of mortality.
authors.affiliation: University of Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Etienne E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Pracht
authors.forename: Joseph J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Tepas
authors.forename: Brian G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Celso
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Langland-Orban
authors.forename: Lewis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Flint
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003710:Demography; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D005260:Female; D005431:Florida / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014193:Trauma Centers; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000401:mortality