This week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)[1] highlighted new mortality rates for children due to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), as shown in the figure below.


The figure shows age-specific mortality rates for three age groups: 0-4 years, 5-14 years, and 15-19 years. Mortality rates declined dramatically for the 15-19 year old group over the 12 years studied. Starting at approximately 23 deaths per 100,000 person-years in 1999, the mortality rate declined by an average by 1 death per 100,000 person-years each year, reaching 12 deaths per 100,000 person-years in 2010.

The rates for the 15-19 year-olds coincides well with a recent report of declining traffic fatalities in that age group, where the mortality rate went from approximately 40 per 100,000 person-years to about 20 per 100,000 person-years from 1999 to 2010, also a 50% drop.