Emergency Department Injury Visits by Sex, Age, and Intent

2017-2018 data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey details initial injury-related visits to hospital emergency departments. The dataset categorizes visits by patient sex, age, and the intent and mechanism of injury. It is published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Use Cases

• Analyze injury mechanism frequency across different age and sex cohorts.
• Investigate trends in injury intent categories such as accidental falls or assaults.
• Compare injury-related emergency department visit patterns before and after the 2015 ICD-10-CM coding transition.

Strengths

• Data originates from the authoritative National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey conducted by the CDC.
• Includes categorization by key demographic variables: sex, age, intent, and mechanism of injury.
• The dataset was revised in December 2021 to correct programming errors for the 2017–2018 estimates.

Limitations

• Data for 2016 is not included, creating a gap in the time series.
• Due to a change in medical coding standards in 2015, injury definitions changed, making direct comparisons with pre-2017 data invalid.
• The specific row count, column count, and file size are unknown from the provided input.

Provenance

Source

United States Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.

Collection Method

National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.

Time Range

2017-2018 (with a noted gap for 2016).

Freshness

The dataset record was last updated in February 2026.

Geography

United States.