Estimates of Injury Impairment After Acute Traumatic Injury in Motorcycle Crashes Before and After Passage of a Mandatory Helmet Use Law☆,☆☆,★,★★
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INTRODUCTION
Knowledge about the causes, diagnoses, treatment needs, and cost of care for acute traumatic injuries is increasing, but much less is known about long-term sequelae. The most commonly recognized long-term outcomes of acute traumatic injury are impairment and disability. Impairment is the loss or abnormality of mental, emotional, physiologic, or anatomic structure or function after healing. Disability refers to inability or limitation in carrying out socially defined tasks, activities or roles.1
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The 1992 California Mandatory Helmet Use Law Evaluation has been described elsewhere.22 For this report, the study group comprised 4,790 nonfatally injured motorcycle riders who crashed in California between January 1, 1991, and December 31, 1993. Riders treated in 1 of 18 hospitals in 10 California counties were included. All riders admitted to the 18 hospitals and riders treated and released from the EDs of 9 of the 18 hospitals were included. The participating hospitals were selected to
RESULTS
Before the introduction of the California Mandatory Helmet Use Law, 61.2% of all riders treated for nonfatal injuries were predicted to have some injury impairment on the basis of IIS score (Table 2). After implementation of the law, the portion of injured riders expected to have sustained any impairment decreased to 57.1% in 1992 and to 51.3% in 1993 (P <.001). The proportion of riders with head injury–related impairments decreased by more than 34%, from 32.3% before passage of the law to
DISCUSSION
The results of this study must be interpreted with caution because the IIS is based solely on the AIS score. We did not measure each individual's actual level of impairment. In only one published study has the estimate of the IIS on disability been validated, and this study revealed that as the IIS increases, longer periods of disability are found.25 However, the authors of this study also found that many subjects with IIS scores of 3 or greater had no disability or were disabled for very short
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the individuals and agencies who contributed to this study, without whom this research could not have been completed: Walter Douglas Beck, Kathryn Brown, Elizabeth Daranciang, George Hsieh, Susan Iocolono, Janet Kraus, Linda Lange, Roberta McKean, Soumitra Sarkar, Heidi Smith, Michael Welch, Carol White, Carol Muldavid, Joyce Phillips, Jon Wong (UCLA); Gail Cooper (San Diego Emergency Medical Services Authority); John Bailey, Bev Christ, Michael Nivens (California Highway
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Cited by (36)
Adolescent noncompliance with age-specific versus universal US motorcycle helmet laws: Systematic review and meta-analysis
2021, Journal of Safety ResearchCitation Excerpt :Consequently, there are numerous studies of effects of such law changes. However, instead of adolescent response they tend to focus on questions relating to number of lives lost (Lee et al., 2017), frequency (Olsen et al., 2016) and nature (Peek-Asa & Kraus, 1997) of injuries (Abbas et al., 2012), and economic costs (Kim et al., 2015); see also (Coben et al., 2007). Because adolescent motorcyclists are required to wear helmets under both kinds of law, some authors have assumed that relevant statistics would not vary according to the type of law.
Examples in biomechanics
2018, Engineering Standards for Forensic ApplicationUniversal Motorcycle Helmet Laws to Reduce Injuries: A Community Guide Systematic Review
2017, American Journal of Preventive MedicineCitation Excerpt :Forty-nine articles were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion criteria: Three papers11–13 were not published in English, 11 papers14–24 evaluated helmet laws in low- or middle-income countries, 20 papers25–44 were not primary evaluations, and 15 papers45–59 did not report on the outcomes of interest. Overall, 71 studies60–130 with 78 study arms were included in the current review (Figure 1), with five studies131–135 providing additional information on already included studies. Of the 71 included studies, 60 studies60–66,68–72,74,76–79,81–90,92–106,108–116,120–122,125–130 with 67 study arms evaluated helmet laws in the U.S.
Repeal of the Michigan helmet law: Early clinical impacts
2014, American Journal of SurgeryCitation Excerpt :Although the passage of the 2012 mandatory helmet law repeal in Michigan is discouraging to many health care professionals, we find it promising that the negative impacts of partial helmet laws appear to be reversible. This has been seen in Nebraska and California where re-enactment of a mandatory helmet law has resulted in fewer crashes, fatalities, and severe head injuries.3,12 We are committed to a continued analysis of the clinical impact of the helmet law repeal and will continue to educate the public on its effects.
Trends in helmet use and head injuries in San Diego County: The effect of bicycle helmet legislation
2006, Accident Analysis and PreventionCitation Excerpt :They concluded that there was a 13-fold increase in helmet use among the children admitted to their trauma center and that helmet use decreased the severity of head injuries. In California, there have been several studies on the California Mandatory Helmet Use Law on traumatic injuries among motorcyclists, Peek-Asa and Krause (1997), Krause and Peek (1995). Lee et al. (2005) studied whether the bicycle safety helmet legislation in California resulted in statistically significant reduction in head injuries among bicyclists aged 17 years and younger.
"Phony" motorcycle helmet use in Georgia [10]
2005, American Journal of Emergency Medicine
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From the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
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Funded by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the California Office of Traffic Safety, the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center, and the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agencies.
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Reprint no.47/1/81342
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Address for reprints: Corinne Peek-Asa, PhD Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center UCLA School of Public Health CHS 76-078 10833 Le Conte Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772