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Updated: Apr 27, 2026
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Training Rats to Voluntarily Dive Underwater: Investigations of the Mammalian Diving Response
Published on: November 12, 2014
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Scuba diving injuries among Divers Alert Network members 2010-2011
Shabbar I Ranapurwala1, Nicholas Bird2, Pachabi Vaithiyanathan3
1Divers Alert Network, Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, Divers Alert Network, 6 West Colony Place, Durham, NC 27705, USA,
Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine
|July 3, 2014
Summary
Scuba diving injuries are more common than previously thought, with higher certification and experience linked to lower injury rates. Most diving injuries are mild and resolve naturally, with few requiring medical treatment.
Area of Science:
- Diving Medicine
- Occupational Health
- Sports Injury Epidemiology
Background:
- Scuba diving injuries present a wide spectrum of severity and outcomes.
- While decompression sickness (DCS) and arterial gas embolism are well-documented, other diving-related injuries are often underreported.
- Accurate data on diving injury incidence is crucial for community health and safety.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the incidence of self-reported scuba diving injuries, DCS-like symptoms, and treated DCS.
- To investigate the relationship between these diving injuries and factors such as diver certification, experience, and demographics.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of self-reported data from a 2011 Divers Alert Network membership health survey.
- Utilized Poisson regression models to analyze relative injury rates, adjusting for sex, age, BMI, and annual dives.
- Employed bias-variance tradeoff principles for model adjustments.
Main Results:
- Overall diving injury rate: 3.02 per 100 dives.
- Self-reported DCS symptoms: 1.55 per 1,000 dives.
- Treated DCS: 5.72 per 100,000 dives.
- Injury and DCS symptom rates decreased with higher certification, age, dives per year, and in men, but increased with higher BMI.
Conclusions:
- Diving injury prevalence may exceed prior estimates, highlighting a significant community health burden.
- Self-reported DCS symptoms and treated DCS represent a small proportion of all diving injuries.
- The low rate of seeking treatment suggests many diving injuries are mild and self-resolving.
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