Economic Statistics: Helmets and Injury Costs
From the Pacific Institute for Research & Evaluation
(Extracted from two emails)
Summary: Some of the numbers and the things to consider when evaluting the economic costs of head injuries. This analysis was done in 2000, so the numbers are outdated but the methodology is not.
Youth Numbers
More than 80% of the resource and productivity costs and the quality of life losses associated with pedalcycling, ages 0-19, does not involve a motor vehicle. At the same time, a pedalcycle incident involving a motor vehicle is about 3.5 five times as costly as one that does not involve a motor vehicle ($17,600 versus $4,900 in resource and productivity costs).
Pedalcycle-only incidents are less severe but far more frequent. Overall, pedalcycle crashes are the 4th largest contributor to childhood injury costs and quality of life losses. The above estimates exclude some cases where a pedalcyclist struck a pedestrian.
For the US in 1996, 262 pedalcyclists ages 0-19 died in motor vehicle crashes compared to 23 in crashes without motor vehicles. These numbers are a perfect illustration of the dangers of doing epidemiology with just mortality data. As Charles suggested, they are overwhelmed by a different pattern for nonfatal injuries. Ages 0-19, 5,500 motor vehicle cases were hospital-admitted and 37,000 were medically treated elsewhere. In contrast, 12,400 cases without motor vehicles involved were hospital-admitted and 735,000 were medically treated elsewhere. Hospital-admitted cases are serious. The non-motor vehicle cases are the largest share of these serious injuries.
Adult Numbers
The importance of non-motor vehicle incidents is even more striking among adults. Motor-vehicle involved deaths still predominate, but not as strongly (430 versus 84). For hospital-admissions, the balance swings far more heavily to non-motor-vehicle cases (25,400 versus 4,900). Although many more deaths and hospital-admitted injuries occur among adults than children, other medically treated injuries are far more often a child problem. The estimated frequencies are 21,000 involving motor vehicles and 166,000 not.
Source: Ted Miller
Pacific Institute for Research & Evaluation
July, 2000
This page was last revised on: March 30, 2006.
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