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Incidence of sports and recreation related injuries resulting in hospitalization in Wisconsin in 2000

¹ Injury Research Center and the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA
² Injury Research Center, Health Policy Institute and the Department of Biostatistics, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA
³ Injury Research Center and the Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Correspondence to:
Dr R L Dempsey
Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA; rdempsey{at}mcw.edu

Objective: To describe the incidence and patterns of sports and recreation related injuries resulting in inpatient hospitalization in Wisconsin. Although much sports and recreation related injury research has focused on the emergency department setting, little is known about the scope or characteristics of more severe sports injuries resulting in hospitalization.

Setting: The Wisconsin Bureau of Health Information (BHI) maintains hospital inpatient discharge data through a statewide mandatory reporting system. The database contains demographic and health information on all patients hospitalized in acute care non-federal hospitals in Wisconsin.

Methods: The authors developed a classification scheme based on the International Classification of Diseases External cause of injury code (E code) to identify hospitalizations for sports and recreation related injuries from the BHI data files (2000). Due to the uncertainty within E codes in specifying sports and recreation related injuries, the authors used Bayesian analysis to model the incidence of these types of injuries.

Results: There were 1714 (95% credible interval 1499 to 2022) sports and recreation-related injury hospitalizations in Wisconsin in 2000 (32.0 per 100 000 population). The most common mechanisms of injury were being struck by/against an object in sports (6.4 per 100 000 population) and pedal cycle riding (6.2 per 100 000). Ten to 19 year olds had the highest rate of sports and recreation related injury hospitalization (65.3 per 100 000 population), and males overall had a rate four times higher than females.

Conclusions: Over 1700 sports and recreation related injuries occurred in Wisconsin in 2000 that were treated during an inpatient hospitalization. Sports and recreation activities result in a substantial number of serious, as well as minor injuries. Prevention efforts aimed at reducing injuries while continuing to promote participation in physical activity for all ages are critical.

Abbreviations: BHI, Bureau of Health Information; ICD-9-CM, International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification; E code, External Cause of Injury code; BUGS, Bayesian inference Using Gibbs Sampling; CrI, credible interval

Keywords: sports; recreation; physical activity; hospitalization; injuries