A comparison of nonfatal unintentional injuries in the United States among U.S.-born and foreign-born persons

Abstract

The objective of this research was to compare the risk of nonfatal unintentional injuries between foreign-born and U.S.-born persons. Cross-sectional, nationally representative data were used from the 2000-2003 National Health Interview Survey to compare the risk of injury between 62,267 foreign-born and 322,200 U.S.-born persons. Nonfatal unintentional injuries occurring during the three months prior to the interview were compared by age, gender, education, poverty status, region of residence, family size, and health insurance coverage status. There were a total of 7,654 injured persons with U.S.-born persons having a weighted injury prevalence of 2.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.2, 2.4) and foreign-born persons having a weighted injury prevalence of 1.2% (95% CI: 1.0, 1.3). With the U.S.-born population as the reference and while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, the odds ratio of injury risk was 0.54 (95% CI: 0.48, 0.62) for the foreign-born population. Transportation-related injuries occurred more frequently among foreign-born persons than among U.S.-born persons (23.7%, 95% CI: 19.7, 28.3 vs. 15.0%, 95% CI: 14.0, 16.2, respectively). This research is the first step in determining the morbidity from unintentional injuries among the foreign-born population in the U.S.