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What is Unintentional Injury?
In injury prevention, it is common to group injuries in terms of intent and mechanism.
- Intent is the purpose behind an injury. Unintentional injuries are injuries that are not caused by deliberate means (in other words, not on purpose). These injuries are sometimes called "accidental."
- Mechanism, or cause of injury, is the external force or activity that comes before the injury. Examples include:
- motor vehicle crash
- fall
- poisoning
- fire or hot object
- drowning
Where is the data coming from?
All data included in this dashboard represent injuries among Wyoming residents and Wyoming hospitals only. Hospitalizations among Wyoming residents that occur out of state and hospitalizations in Wyoming facilities from non-residents are not included in this dashboard.
- Fatal injury data were obtained from Wyoming Vital Statistics for years 2004-2017.
- Non-fatal injury data were obtained from Wyoming Hospital Discharge Data for years 2009-2015.
Why Unintentional Injury?
More Wyoming residents ages 1-44 years die from unintentional injuries than any other cause including heart disease and cancer. Unintentional injury is the fourth leading cause of death across all ages. In 2015, deaths related to unintentional injury in Wyoming cost as estimated $424,565,000 in combined lifetime work loss and medical costs.
Unintentional injury accounts for the majority of all injuries.
In Wyoming, unintentional injury mortality rates are 2x higher than suicide rates and 18x higher than homicide rates. Non-fatal unintentional injury hospitalization rates are 7x higher than self-harm rates and 34x higher than assault rates.
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