United States: A recent study which has already found that men are more than three times as likely to die from traumatic brain injuries compared to women. In 2021, there were almost like 30 brain injury-related deaths as per like almost 100,000 men, compared to just 9 per 100,000 women. This research, published on January 9 in Brain Injury, sheds light on the gender disparities in brain injury-related fatalities.
Unintentional firearms, falls, and motor vehicle incidents were identified to be the leading causes of brain injury mortality from the study.
But older adults are also at a high level of risk and, interestingly, they fall often unintentionally and become TBI fatalities, Peterson an epidemiologist with CDC and lead researcher, stated in the news release.
As reported by the HealthDay, about one-quarter of all those who die from injuries have traumatic brain injury s, researchers noted in their background information.
To further illustrate, TBIs particularly the fatal ones are not only high profile athletes, sports concussions risk which affect the brain significantly were brought to public attention but are also common in ordinary people.
TBIs happen when the head is hit by an object or experiences a force that is strong enough to cause the brain to act differently, which may be due to an accident, a purposeful act of violence, or intimate partner violence, researchers said. The TBI also can occur when an object strikes the head or an object that pierces the skull.
In the course of the research, the authors analyzed data from a system that registers deaths in the United States and the causes of such deaths.
The researchers identified more than 69,400 TBI-related deaths in the United States in 2021 or approximately 190 each day.
And that brings it down to approximately 19 per 100,000 people and that is a nearly 9% increase from 2020.
As concluded in the study, research findings indicate that TBI-related deaths among the older population, particularly people at the age of 75 and above stood at 86 or more per hundred thousand people. Many of these were due to accidental falls.
African American people steadily ranked second, followed by Hispanics and white people, while American Indian/Alaska Native people had the highest death rate of more than 31 deaths per 100, 000.
From TBI, over three thousand six hundred unintentional injuries that include motor vehicle collisions, falls, and being struck by an object ended in death.