Disparities in traumatic brain injury-related deaths - United States, 2023

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant public health problem. Conducting regular surveillance of TBI-related deaths is important in order to determine which groups are at disproportionate risk of dying from a TBI, tracking trends over time, and informing prevention efforts.

TBI-related deaths from 2023 were analyzed using multiple-cause-of-death data from the National Vital Statistics System by age, sex, race/ethnicity, injury intent/mechanism of injury, and geography. TBI-related deaths were identified if a death had an injury-related International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision underlying cause of death and a TBI-related diagnosis code in one of the multiple-cause-of-death fields.

In 2023, there were 68,663 TBI-related deaths in the United States. Older adults aged ≥ 75 years (82.5 per 100,000 population), males (29.1), non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) individuals (29.7), and several states in the West US Census region displayed the highest rates of TBI-related deaths compared to their respective groups. Suicide (rate of 7.0 [36.0% of all TBI-related deaths]) was the most common cause of TBI-related deaths in the United States in 2023, followed by unintentional falls (rate of 5.2 [31.6% of all TBI-related deaths]).

Results show that deaths due to TBI are common but not all groups in the United States are at equal risk. This information can help decision makers identify the populations most at risk, which is critical in identifying priority areas and developing targeted prevention strategies.

Prevention efforts targeting the leading causes of TBI-related deaths (i.e., falls and suicide) and those most at risk (i.e., older adults, males, and AI/AN individuals) are warranted to reduce disparities in TBI mortality. Effective evidence-based prevention strategies aimed at mitigating modifiable risk and protective factors can help decrease risk.