Emergency Department Visits for Bicycle-Related Traumatic Brain Injuries Among Children and Adults — United States, 2009-2018
Cited in 2 Likelier entries (2 risks, 0 decisions).
Used in 2 entries
For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.
-
- Statistic
596,972 ED visits for bicycle-related TBIs during 2009-2018; rate fell from 18.8 to 13.6 per 100,000
“"An estimated 596,972 ED visits for bicycle-related TBIs occurred in the United States" and "The rate per 100,000 population of ED visits for bicycle-related TBIs during this time decreased by 27.7%, from 18.8 in 2009 to 13.6 in 2018."”
Calculation notes
The CDC MMWR report is the anchor for the numerator: ~60,000 bicycle-related TBI ED visits per year in the US, falling modestly over the decade. It does not split out "serious" vs "mild" TBI in the headline figure, but roughly 10-15 percent of TBI ED visits nationally are admitted rather than treated and released, giving a rough serious-TBI denominator of ~6,000 to 9,000 per year. Combined with an active-cyclist denominator of ~15 million frequent US riders, this yields the per-year serious-TBI risk of ~4-6 per 10,000 that underpins the normalized lifetime estimate. The paper also notes that helmets "are not designed to prevent a concussion, which occurs after linear and rotational forces cause extreme brain movement inside the skull" — a reminder that the helmet effect size applies to skull fracture and focal trauma, not to the full concussion outcome.
Independence note: CDC NEISS-AIP sample is upstream of most US bicycle-injury aggregators, including IIHS and Injury Facts. Treat as the primary US measurement.
Source date: 2021-05-14 · Accessed: 2026-04-11
-
- Statistic
An estimated 596,972 ED visits for bicycle-related TBIs occurred in the US during 2009–2018; the surveillance system does not record cyclist phone use, helmet use, or injury circumstances consistently
“"An estimated 596,972 ED visits for bicycle-related TBIs occurred in the United States during this study period (2009–2018)… NEISS-AIP narrative descriptions do not provide detailed or consistent information about helmet use, injury circumstances (e.g., whether the injury occurred on a road or bicycle path), or about a person's level of exposure."”
Calculation notes
Sarmiento et al. 2021 (CDC MMWR) is the primary US bicycle-injury surveillance source. It documents that ED visits for bicycle-related TBI are common (≈60,000/year averaged over 2009–2018) but explicitly states that the surveillance instrument does not capture the circumstances that would let an analyst identify which crashes involved cyclist phone use. This source is cited as documentation of the data gap that prevents a US cyclist-phone-distraction injury rate from being estimated — the numerator data does not exist, regardless of what denominator one might assume.
Source date: 2021-05-14 · Accessed: 2026-05-24
Also cited in these entries
Cycling w/o helmet
What are the odds of serious head injury when cycling without a helmet?
Phone-distracted cycling crash
What are the odds of crashing while cycling distracted by a phone?