Faculty Collaboration Database

Obesity and non-fatal motor vehicle crash injuries: sex difference effects. Int J Obes (Lond) 2011 Sep;35(9):1216-24

Date

01/13/2011

Pubmed ID

21224830

Pubmed Central ID

PMC3135704

DOI

10.1038/ijo.2010.270

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-80052712210 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   21 Citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Obesity and motor vehicle crash (MVC) injuries are two parallel epidemics in the United States. An important unanswered question is whether there are sex differences in the associations between the presence of obesity and non-fatal MVC injuries.

OBJECTIVES: To further understand the association between obesity and non-fatal MVC injuries, particularly the sex differences in these relations.

METHODS: We examined this question by analyzing data from the 2003 to 2007 National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS CDS). A total of 10,962 drivers who were aged 18 years or older and who survived frontal collision crashes were eligible for the study.

RESULTS: Male drivers experienced a lower rate of overall non-fatal MVC injuries than did female drivers (38.1 versus 52.2%), but experienced a higher rate of severe injuries (0.7 versus 0.2%). After adjusting for change in velocity (ΔV) during the crashes, obese male drivers showed a much higher risk (logistic coefficients of body mass index (BMI) for moderate, serious and severe injury are 0.0766, 0.1470 and 0.1792, respectively; all P<0.05) of non-fatal injuries than did non-obese male drivers and these risks increased with injury severity. Non-fatal injury risks were not found to be increased in obese female drivers. The association between obesity and risk of non-fatal injury was much stronger for male drivers than for female drivers.

CONCLUSION: The higher risk of non-fatal MVC injuries in obese male drivers might result from their different body shape and fat distribution compared with obese female drivers. Our findings should be considered for obesity reduction, traffic safety evaluation and vehicle design for obese male drivers and provide testable hypotheses for future studies.

Author List

Ma X, Laud PW, Pintar F, Kim JE, Shih A, Shen W, Heymsfield SB, Allison DB, Zhu S

Authors

Purushottam W. Laud PhD Adjunct Professor in the Data Science Institute department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Frank A. Pintar PhD Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Accidents, Traffic
Adult
Body Mass Index
Female
Humans
Injury Severity Score
Logistic Models
Male
Obesity
Odds Ratio
Risk Factors
Sex Factors
United States