United States: Another look at helmet effectiveness using a trauma data base

Over 1,000 U.S. trauma centres and hospitals contribute patient data to the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB). That means there are over 2 million patient records in it; more than 76,000 of them are motorcycle-related injuries. Croce and his colleages at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis examined the motorcycle injury data and produced an analysis of what may be the largest motorcycle injury database to date.

Their conclusions – like many other smaller studies – were that there were more uninsured patients who did not wear helmets, and that wearing a helmet has a strong protective effect on in-hopsital mortality. Because of the way data in the NTDB are collected, for instance, fatal motorcycle injuries amongst those who died on the scene are not in the database, there may be some differences of mortality rates in this report from what actually occurred.  Still, the study comes to a clear conclusion that helmets do work in protecting against in-hospital mortality, and they save money too – about $32 million in intensive care unit costs alone during the 7-year study.

The authors use these financial savings to make a case that for financial reasons alone, helmets use for motorcyclists should be mandatory. They believe that, given the savings in life and costs that helmets showed in their study, helmet use is a societal issue.

Croce MA, Zaraur BL, Magnotti LJ, Fabian TC. Impact of motorcycle helmets and state laws on society’s burden: A national study. Ann Surgery 2009;250(3):390-4.

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