Background Child head injury is an important public health issue. It is estimated that head injury is the first cause of child disability. The data from National Injury Surveillance System of China 2014 showed that about 200,000 cases went to outpatient and emergency due to head injury, 1/5 of them were child aged 0 to 14.

Methods Descriptive analysis was applied to depict general information, injuries events and clinical characteristics of child head injuries in 2014.

Results In 2014, 47690 cases of child head injuries were collected, males were twice higher than females, with 43.5% of them under 1–4 years of age. October, Thursday and 6 PM were the peak period of time. The three leading causes responsible for child head injuries were falls (69.6%), blunt force injuries (14.23%) and road traffic injury (11.0%). Main locations causing head injuries were at home(45.0%), public places (19.7%), in road/street (15.8%). Recreation activates (77.88%), driving (7.32%), sports activities (5.72%) were the three major activities when injuries took place. The main injury intent was unintentional (95.4%). The three leading nature of injury were bruise injuries (71.7%), Sharp injuries, bites and open injuries (20.1%), concussion/cerebral contusion (4.0%). Most of the injury cases were mild (90.3%), only 13.8% of them were moderate, and 0.9% of them were severe. The major disposition of injury cases were treated and discharged (82.0%), others were observed/admitted/transferred (9.4%) and dead (0.04%).

Conclusions In 2014, child head injuries were seen more in male than in female, mostly occurs at home. The leading causes for head injuries were falls, blunt injuries and road traffic.