Source: CDC, updated July 2009

Each year trauma accounts for 37 million emergency department visits and 2.6 million hospital admissions
across the nation.

Life Years Lost* (2006, most recent available)
      Trauma injury accounts for 31% of all life years
        lost in the U.S.
      Cancer accounts for 16%
      Heart disease accounts for 12%
      HIV accounts for 2.0%

Economic Burden (Finkelstein, 2006)
      $406 billion a year, including both health care costs
       and lost productivity

Deaths due to injury (2006, most recent available)
      179,065

Ranking as cause of death
      #1 for age group 1-44, or 47% of all deaths in this age range
      #5 as leading cause of death overall, across all age groups

Burns (2007, most recent available)
      500,000 burn injuries require medical attention annually.

Falls (2006, most recent available)
      Nearly one third of older adults experience a fall each year
      In 2006, over 8 million people were treated in emergency departments for nonfatal
        injuries related to falls; 1.9 million of these were people aged over 65 years.
      In 2006, more than 20,800 people died of fall-related injuries; over 17,700 were
        65 years or older.

      Because trauma is a disease affecting all ages of people, the
        impact on life years lost is equal to the life years lost from cancer,
        heart disease and HIV combined.

Finkelstein, E.A., Corso, P.S., & Miller, T.R. The Incidence and Economic Burden of Injuries in the United States.
USA: Oxford University Press. 2006

* Life Years Lost: A measure to account for the age at which deaths
occur, giving greater weight to deaths occurring at younger ages and
lower weight to deaths occurring at older ages. The LYL (percentage
of total) indicator measures the LYL due to a particular cause of death
as a proportion of the total LYL lost due to premature mortality in the
population.