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National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) On-line

CPSC’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) is a national probability sample of hospitals in the U.S. and its territories. Patient information is collected from each NEISS hospital for every emergency visit involving an injury associated with consumer products. From this sample, the total number of product-related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms nationwide can be estimated. This web access to NEISS allows certain estimates to be retrieved on-line. These estimates can be focused by setting some or all of the following variables (and an example of each):

Date (one year maximum range; e.g., how many injuries were treated in 1996)
Product (e.g., how many bicycle injuries occurred)
Sex (e.g., how many injuries occurred to women)
Age (e.g., how many injuries occurred to people aged 35-55)
Diagnosis (e.g., how many lacerations occurred)
Disposition (e.g., how many people were admitted to the hospital)
Locale (e.g., how many injuries occurred at a school)
Body part (e.g., how many injuries involved the knee)

For example, the following query could be made: number of males between the ages of 50 and 70 treated in hospital emergency rooms between February 1999 and October 1999 for injuries associated with use of a ladder at home. The response would include the actual number of cases/injuries in the NEISS sample, and an estimate for the entire nation.

The product or products involved are chosen using NEISS product codes. It is extremely important to understand what codes apply to the date range specified in the query, as NEISS product codes change over time. Up to three product codes, or ranges of product codes, can be specified in a given query. The following sources will help you with choosing the appropriate product codes (note: pdf means that the document is in portable document format and if you have not done so already, requires downloading Adobe™ Acrobat™ software to be viewed):

The NEISS Product Code drop-down list on the NEISS query builder page
NEISS Coding Manual (pdf) - a description of which cases are included in NEISS, how they're coded and an alphabetical listing of products with current product codes
Product Code Comparability Table (pdf) - a numerical listing of all product codes with history of product code changes

Other sources of NEISS information:

We have recently added a new feature which allows you to preview, and then download, all cases meeting your query criteria. The download includes not only the parameters associated with each case, but also a narrative description of important aspects of each case. This feature is only available for queries with a "From" treatment date of January 1, 2002 or later.

If you encounter a problem using CPSC's NEISS on-line query system, please find out if a firewall is located in the path between your computer and your organization's (or your) Internet connection. If so, please ask your firewall adminstrator to allow http traffic on port 7778. Also, you will not be able to access this site if you have blocked cookies.

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