Report on Injuries in America

All Unintentional Injuries, 2005

Total Unintentional-Injury Deaths

• Unintentional-injury deaths were up 1% in 2005 compared to the revised 2004 total. Unintentional-injury deaths were estimated to total 113,000 in 2005 and 112,000 in 2004. The 2005 estimate is 3% greater than the 2003 final count of 109,277. The 2005 figure is 30% greater than the 1992 total of 86,777 (the lowest annual total since 1924) and only 3% below the 1969 peak of 116,385 deaths.
• The death rate in 2005 was 38.1 per 100,000 population – 12% greater than the lowest rate on record, which was 34. in 1992. The 2005 death rate was unchanged from the 2004 revised rate.
• Comparing 2005 to 2004, home and work deaths decreased while motor-vehicle and public deaths increased. The population death rate in the home class declined and the rates increased in the motor-vehicle and public classes.
• According to the latest final data (2003), unintentional injuries continued to be the fifth leading cause of death, exceeded only by heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Preliminary death certificate data for 2004 indicate that unintentional injuries will remain in fifth place.

Nonfatal Injuries

• In 2004, 33.2 million people – about 1 out of 9 – sought medical attention for an injury and 2.8 million people were hospitalized for injuries.
• About 28.1 million were treated in hospital emergency departments and about 5.2 million visits to hospital outpatient departments were for unintentional injuries.
• About 58.4 million visits to physicians' offices were for unintentional injuries.

Motor-Vehicle Deaths

• The motor-vehicle death total was up 1% in 2005. The motor-vehicle death rate per 100,000,000 vehicle-miles was 1.54 in 2005, up 0.7% from the revised 2004 rate (1.53) and down 0.6% from the revised 2003 rate of 1.55.
• 45,800 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2005, and 2.4 million were injured.

The Cost of Injuries

• The economic impact of these fatal and nonfatal unintentional injuries amounted to $625.5 billion in 2005. This is equivalent to about $2,100 per capita, or about $5,500 per household. These are costs that every individual and household pays whether directly out of pocket, through higher prices for goods and services, or through higher taxes

Since We Started Tracking Injuries

• Between 1912 and 2005, unintentional-injury deaths per 100,000 population were reduced 51% (after adjusting for the classification change in 1948) from 82.4 to 38.1. The reduction in the overall rate during a period when the nation's population tripled has resulted in 5,100,000 fewer people being killed due to unintentional injuries than there would have been if the rate had not been reduced.

Source: National Safety Council estimates (rounded) based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics, state departments of health, and state traffic authorities, except for the work figures which are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI).

^aDeaths and injuries above for the four separate classes add to more than the All Classes figures due to rounding and because some deaths and injuries are included in more than one class. For example, 2,158 work deaths involved motor vehicles and are in both the work and motor-vehicle totals and 200 motor-vehicle deaths occurred on home premises and are in both home and motor-vehicle. The total of such duplication amounted to about 2,358 deaths and 100,000 injuries in 2005.

^bLess than 10,000.