Population-based study of unintentional injuries in the home

There is little current understanding of the risk for occurrence of unintentional injury in the home. The authors estimated the incidence of unintentional home injuries for an entire community, adjusting for actual time spent awake in the home and, in addition, analyzed the costs of these injuries. Cases of unintentional home injuries occurring from 1990 to 1993 among the residents of Stavanger, Norway (approximately 100,000 population) were identified through a prospective, ongoing injury registration system. Age- and sex-specific per-population incidence and incidence per time spent awake at home were estimated. Time exposure data for adults were obtained from the Norwegian Time Budget Survey and were estimated directly for children. The cost of injuries was estimated based on a random sample of 289 patients. A total of 8,580 persons received medical treatment for unintentional injuries in the home (22.0 per 1,000 population annually, 71.9 per 10 million hours awake at home). The per-population incidence was highest among children age 6 years or younger and among people aged 65 or older (51.0 and 32.7 respectively, per 1,000 population annually). The high population incidence for children was not accounted for by time spent awake at home. For people aged 65-74 years, however, increased incidence was primarily a function of greater time spent awake at home. For persons aged 75 years or older, the high population incidence was due to both high exposure-adjusted incidence and greater time spent awake at home. The male-female ratio of age-standardized per-population incidence was 1.07 (95% confidence interval 1.04-1.10), and the ratio of age-standardized exposure-adjusted incidence was 1.22 (95% confidence interval 1.17-1.28). The estimated cost (direct and indirect) per injury was $1,300 during the first year after injury. Persons aged 75 years or older accounted for 12% of the injuries but 50% of the total medical costs.