Sex-related disparities in vehicle crash injury and hemodynamics. Front Public Health 2024;12:1331313
Date
04/01/2024Pubmed ID
38560436Pubmed Central ID
PMC10978633DOI
10.3389/fpubh.2024.1331313Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85188905781 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Multiple studies evaluate relative risk of female vs. male crash injury; clinical data may offer a more direct injury-specific evaluation of sex disparity in vehicle safety. This study sought to evaluate trauma injury patterns in a large trauma database to identify sex-related differences in crash injury victims.
METHODS: Data on lap and shoulder belt wearing patients age 16 and up with abdominal and pelvic injuries from 2018 to 2021 were extracted from the National Trauma Data Bank for descriptive analysis using injuries, vital signs, International Classification of Disease (ICD) coding, age, and injury severity using AIS (Abbreviated Injury Scale) and ISS (Injury Severity Score). Multiple linear regression was used to assess the relationship of shock index (SI) and ISS, sex, age, and sex*age interaction. Regression analysis was performed on multiple injury regions to assess patient characteristics related to increased shock index.
RESULTS: Sex, age, and ISS are strongly related to shock index for most injury regions. Women had greater overall SI than men, even in less severe injuries; women had greater numbers of pelvis and liver injuries across severity categories; men had greater numbers of injury in other abdominal/pelvis injury regions.
CONCLUSIONS: Female crash injury victims' tendency for higher (AIS) severity of pelvis and liver injuries may relate to how their bodies interact with safety equipment. Females are entering shock states (SI > 1.0) with lesser injury severity (ISS) than male crash injury victims, which may suggest that female crash patients are somehow more susceptible to compromised hemodynamics than males. These findings indicate an urgent need to conduct vehicle crash injury research within a sex-equity framework; evaluating sex-related clinical data may hold the key to reducing disparities in vehicle crash injury.
Author List
Cronn S, Somasundaram K, Driesslein K, Tomas CW, Pintar FAuthors
Frank A. Pintar PhD Chair, Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Medical College of WisconsinKarthik Somasundaram PhD Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Accidents, TrafficAdolescent
Female
Hemodynamics
Humans
Injury Severity Score
Liver
Male
Protective Devices
