National estimates of U.S. residential fire-related injuries: An improved procedure

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Abstract

This study compared fire-related injuries from two ongoing data systems to determine how to combine them to provide improved estimates of U.S. residential fire-related injuries. National estimates and characteristics of patients treated in hospital emergency rooms for fire-related injuries were compared with injuries in a database of fires attended by the fire service. National estimates, age, and diagnosis distributions of injuries seen by both a hospital and the fire service were very similar in the two systems, indicating that the systems overlapped for this segment of injuries. Each system also contained a segment of fire-related injuries that was not included in the other. Combining the overlapping segment of injuries with segments that did not overlap resulted in an estimate of 45,000–47,000 U.S. fire-related injuries, the most com-prehensive estimate of U.S. residential fire-related injuries available to date.

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The opinions expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the views of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Since this material was written in the author's official capacity, it is in the public domain and, in accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, may be freely copied or reprinted.

Linda E. Smith received a B.A. in sociology from Allegheny College in 1963, with additional training in statistics from the USDA Graduate School and the FAES Graduate School at NIH. She is currently a Health Statistician with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, specializing in fire hazards related to consumer products.

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