Emergency Department Visits for Pedestrians Injured in Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes - United States, January 2021-December 2023

Abstract

Traffic-related pedestrian deaths in the United States reached a 40-year high in 2021. Each year, pedestrians also suffer nonfatal traffic-related injuries requiring medical treatment. Near real-time emergency department visit data from CDC's National Syndromic Surveillance Program during January 2021-December 2023 indicated that among approximately 301 million visits identified, 137,325 involved a pedestrian injury (overall visit proportion = 45.62 per 100,000 visits). The proportions of visits for pedestrian injury were 1.53-2.47 times as high among six racial and ethnic minority groups as that among non-Hispanic White persons. Compared with persons aged ≥65 years, proportions among those aged 15-24 and 25-34 years were 2.83 and 2.61 times as high, respectively. The visit proportion was 1.93 times as high among males as among females, and 1.21 times as high during September-November as during June-August. Timely pedestrian injury data can help collaborating federal, state, and local partners rapidly monitor trends, identify disparities, and implement strategies supporting the Safe System approach, a framework for preventing traffic injuries among all road users.

FIGURE

Weekly number of emergency department visits for pedestrian injury — National Syndromic Surveillance Program, United States, January 2021–December 2023 Abbreviations: ED = emergency department; NSSP = National Syndromic Surveillance Program. * ED visits for an initial pedestrian injury encounter were identified by querying a categorization developed and validated by CDC in partnership with state and local health departments. This categorization aims to detect initial ED visits among pedestrians unintentionally injured on public roads in crashes involving a motor vehicle. https://knowledgerepository.syndromicsurveillance.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/CDC%20Pedestrian%20Motor%20Vehicle%20Traffic%20Injury%20v1.pdf ^† NSSP is a collaboration among CDC, federal partners, local and state health departments, and academic and private sector partners. NSSP receives medical record data from approximately 78% of EDs nationwide, although <50% of facilities from California, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Oklahoma currently participate in NSSP. https://www.cdc.gov/nssp/index.html