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FRIDAY, Sept. 13, 2019 (HealthDay News) — From 2002 to 2012, only 22 percent of bicyclists with head\/neck injury in the United States wore helmets, according to a study published online Sept. 13 in Brain Injury<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Lagina R. Scott, M.D., from the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, and colleagues examined the correlation between helmet use and bicycle-related trauma injury outcomes among bicyclists with head\/neck injury in the United States using data from the 2002 to 2012 National Trauma Data Bank.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that 22 percent of the 76,032 bicyclists with head\/neck injury wore helmets. Blacks, Hispanics, and those aged <17 years had the lowest rates of wearing helmets; girls\/women had a higher percent of helmet use than boys\/men (28.3 versus 20.6 percent). Injury severity, length of stay in the hospital (HLOS), length of stay in an intensive care unit (ICULOS), and mortality (total and in-hospital) were significantly reduced with wearing a helmet. Compared with girls\/women, boys\/men had more severe injury, longer HLOS, longer ICULOS, and higher mortality. Compared with whites, blacks and Hispanics had longer HLOS and ICULOS and higher total mortality, but similar in-hospital mortality.<\/p>\n
“Further research is necessary into why helmet use practice is low and uneven across racial\/ethnic groups,” the authors write. “Our results imply that these at-risk groups may benefit from injury prevention and outreach programs that aim to increase helmet use and reduce the risk of head injury and hospitalization.”<\/p>\n
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