Brain injury severity due to direct head contact from near-side motor vehicle collisions

The objective of this study was to generate functional forms of brain injury risk curves using the National Automotive Sample System Crashworthiness Data System's (NASS-CDS) database for the years of 2001-2015. The population of interest was near-side occupants who experienced a direct head impact with an injury source located lateral to a typical seated position.

Brain injuries were restricted to Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 2005 Update 2008 defined concussions and internal organ injuries of the head. Near-side occupants comprised two major groups, both of which were required to have evidence of head contact (i.e., a head injury with DIRINJ = 1 and SOUCON = 1 or 2): brain injured occupants (MAIS1, MAIS2, MAIS3+) and non-brain injured occupants with some other direct contact head injury (MAIS0). Analyzed cases were required to have an indication of a reasonable crash reconstruction. Injury sources allowed within the final sample consisted of A-pillars, B-pillars, roof/roof rails, impacting vehicles/exterior objects, other components of the vehicle's side interior, and other occupants or otherwise unspecified interior objects. Risk curves for occupants with brain injury severities of MAIS0, MAIS1+, MAIS2+, and MAIS3+ were generated using multivariate stepwise logistic regressions. Investigated predictors involved vehicle change in velocity, seat belt use, principal direction of force (PDOF), and injury source type (B-pillar and side window).

Multivariate stepwise logistic regressions identified significant predictors of lateral change in velocity (dvlat) for all injury severity categories, and side window injury source (INJSOU = 56, 57, 58, 106, and 107) for MAIS0 and MAIS1+ risk curves. Although model sensitivity decreased for more severe injury predictions, risk curves dependent on only dvlat yielded accuracies of 70% for all presented models.

Real world crashes are often complex and lack the benefit of real time monitoring; however, NASS-CDS post-crash investigations provide data useful for injury risk prediction. Further analysis is needed to determine the effect of data confidence, injury source, and accident sequence restrictions on NASS-CDS sampling biases. The presented models likely favor a more conservative risk prediction due to the limitations of NASS-CDS data collection, AIS code conversion, and unweighted sample analysis.