Deaths from Injuries Rise in Some States in Last Four Years

A new report gives insight into injury related deaths state by state in the U.S.

Published: June 25, 2015Author: CS Staff

The report, done by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Foundation, found that New York and Massachusetts had the lowest injury death rates in the country.

Score Summary

A full list of all of the indicators and scores, listed below, is available along with the full report on TFAH’s website at www.healthyamericans.org. For the state-by-state scoring, states received one point for achieving an indicator or zero points if they did not achieve the indicator. Zero is the lowest possible overall score, 10 is the highest.

9 out of 10: New York
8 out of 10: Delaware
7 out of 10: California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia
6 out of 10: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Virginia
5 out of 10: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin
4 out of 10: Arizona, District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania
3 out of 10: Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming
2 out of 10: Florida, Iowa, Missouri and Montana

The 10 indicators include:

Does the state have a primary seat belt law? (34 states and Washington, D.C., meet the indicator and 16 states do not.)
Does the state require mandatory ignition interlocks for all convicted drunk drivers, even first-time offenders? (21 states meet the indicator and 29 states and Washington, D.C., do not.)
Does the state require car seats or booster seats for children up to at least the age of 8? (35 states and Washington, D.C.
, meet the indicator and 15 do not.)
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Does the state have Graduated Driver Licensing laws-restricting driving for teens starting at 10 p.m.? (10 states meet the indicator and 40 states and Washington, D.C., do not. Note a number of other states have restrictions starting at 11 p.m. or 12 p.m.)
Does the state require bicycle helmets for all children? (21 states and Washington, D.C., meet the indicator and 29 states do not.)
Does the state have fewer homicides than the national goal of 5.5 per 100,000 people established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2011-2013 data)? (31 states meet the indicator and 19 states and Washington, D.C., do not.)
Does the state have a child abuse and neglect victimization rate at or below the national rate of 9.1 per 1,000 children (2013 data)? (25 states meet the indicator and 25 states and Washington, D.C., do not.)
Does the state have fewer deaths from unintentional falls than the national goal of 7.2 per 100,000 people established by HHS (2011-2013 data)? (13 states meet the indicator and 37 states and Washington, D.C., do not.)
Does the state require mandatory use of data from the prescription drug monitoring program by at least some healthcare providers? (25 states meet the indicator and 25 states and Washington, D.C., do not.)
Does the state have laws in place to expand access to, and use of, naloxone, an overdose rescue drug by laypersons? (34 states and D.C., meet the indicator and 16 states do not.)

State-by-State Injury Death RankingsNote: Rates include all injury deaths for all ages for injuries caused by injuries and violence (intentional and unintentional). They are based on a methodology used to compare rates across all states-including using three-year averages of the most recent data (2011-2013). National data sources may differ from how some states calculate their data (because of use of different time frames, inclusion/exclusions, etc.). 1 = Highest rate of injury fatalities, 51 = lowest rate of injury fatalities. The 2011-2013 data are from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System—age-adjusted using the year 2000 to standardize the data. This methodology, recommended by the CDC, compensates for any potential anomalies or unusual changes due to the specific sample in any given year in any given state. States with statistically significant (p<0.05) increases since 2007-2009 are noted with an asterisk (*), while states with a statistically significant decrease are noted with two asterisks (**).

1. West Virginia (97.9*)
2. New Mexico (92.7**)
3. Oklahoma (88.4*)
4. Montana (85.1)
5. Wyoming (84.6)
6. Alaska (83.5)
7. Kentucky (81.7*)
8. Mississippi (81.0)
9. Tennessee (76.7)
10. Arkansas (75.3)
11. Louisiana (75.3**)
12. Arizona (73.4)
13. Alabama (73.3)
14. Utah (72.8*)
15. Missouri (72.4)
16. Colorado (70.7)
17. South Carolina (69.9)
18. Idaho (69.1)
19. (tie) Nevada (67.1**) and South Dakota (67.1*)
21. Vermont (66.0)
22. Kansas (65.0*)
23. Pennsylvania (64.3*)
24. Ohio (63.9*)
25. Indiana (63.7*)
26. North Carolina (62.1**)
27. Wisconsin (62.0*)
28. Oregon (61.8)
29. Florida (61.3**)
30. Michigan (60.6*)
31. Maine (60.1)
32. Delaware (60.0)
33. North Dakota (59.3)
34. Rhode Island (58.6*)
35. Georgia (58.1**)
36. Washington (57.1)
37. New Hampshire (56.6*)
38. Iowa (56.4*)
39. Texas (55.3**)
40. Minnesota (54.9*)
41. District of Columbia (53.7)
42. Maryland (53.4**)
43. Nebraska (52.5)
44. Virginia (52.0)
45. Illinois (50.0)
46. Connecticut (49.6)
47. Hawaii (48.8)
48. California (44.6**)
49. New Jersey (44.0*)
50. Massachusetts (42.9)
51. New York (40.3*)

State-by-State Drug Overdose Death RankingsNote: Rates include drug overdose deaths, for 2011-2013, a three-year average. 1 = Highest rate of drug overdose fatalities, 51 = lowest rate of drug overdose fatalities. States with statistically significant (p<0.05) increases since 2007-2009 are noted with an asterisk (*), while states with a statistically significant decrease are noted with two asterisks (**). States with a § have an overdose death rate higher than the state's overall motor vehicle mortality rate for 2011 to 2013.