Electric bike injuries, hospitalizations increased significantly in recent years

The incidence of electrical bicycle (e-bicycle)-related accidents, notably head accidents, has surged in the USA since 2017, based on a analysis letter published on-line Feb. 21 in JAMA Surgical procedure.

Adrian M. Fernandez, M.D., from the College of California in San Francisco, and colleagues used knowledge from the Nationwide Digital Damage Surveillance System to estimate the variety of sufferers with accidents presenting to U.S. emergency departments (2017 to 2022).

The researchers recognized 45,586 e-bicycle accidents that occurred in the USA in the course of the research interval, resulting in an estimated 5,462 hospitalizations. Over the 5 years, there was a statistically important 30-fold rise in e-bicycle accidents (>99 p.c yearly) and a statistically important 43-fold enhance in hospitalizations (>108 p.c yearly). There was a rise in accidents in kids (0 to 13 p.c of complete accidents), whereas there was a lower in accidents amongst young adults aged 18 to 34 years (63 to 30 p.c of complete accidents). The incidence of head trauma from e-bicycle accidents was roughly 49 instances greater in 2022 than in 2017, with a growth rate that outpaced general e-bicycle accidents. Annually, there have been 5.6 p.c decreased odds of helmet use. Lower than half of injured e-bicyclists wore helmets (44 p.c). Head harm odds had been 1.9 instances better in nonhelmeted e-bicyclists versus helmeted.

“The growing proportion of head injuries in our research warrants additional examination, as traumatic mind accidents are extra extreme in e-bicyclists than in conventional bicyclists,” the authors write.

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