CODES Mission
What is CODES?
- CODES uses linked electronic data to track persons involved in motor vehicle crashes from the scene through the health care system to determine crash outcome in terms of mortality, injury, severity, and health care costs.
- CODES uses probabilistic techniques to link crash and other injury data.
- Combinations of identifiers are used to link records for specific individuals. Once linked, these identifiers are no longer needed or used. Geographic location, times, type of vehicle, and other variables are used to identify a specific crash. Age/date of birth, gender, description of injury, name or initials, and other variables are used to locate a specific person.
CODES History
The Injury Prevention Program (IPP) of the Georgia Department of Public Health has been the designated CODES agency for the state since Georgia CODES was established in 2000 through funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. Georgia CODES has linked a combination of crash reports, EMS reports, and hospital data for years 2000 through 2008.
Injury Prevention Program has worked toward institutionalizing CODES in Georgia by developing and maintaining relationships with data owners, users, and injury prevention stakeholders through the establishment of two groups, the CODES Board and CODES Data Subcommittee. The CODES Board includes the owners of the state data and is responsible for all decisions related to confidentiality, management and release of the linked data. The Data Subcommittee is responsible for addressing specific technical issues related to the analysis of linked data. Some of the current members of the CODES project Board include many state agencies, federal partners and Emory. In addition, Safe Kids Georgia, a community action group with an interest in highway safety, also serves on the board.
Publications
More Information
Contact Information:
Denise Yeager | (404) 657-4776 | dmyeager@dhr.state.ga.us