|
Every year, injuries are a persistent and costly public health challenge in the United States, forcing tens of millions of people to visit emergency departments. In 2023 alone, U.S. hospitals dealt with 27.6 million injury-related cases, from everyday falls and overexertion to serious transport- and firearm-related incidents.
This study will closely consider the leading causes of injury in the U.S., the chief causes of the injuries in question, the body parts most vulnerable to injuries, and those who suffer most from injuries. We’ll also consider the cost of the injuries and offer some simple safety tactics, the adoption of which would limit the country’s annual injury count.
First up: let’s take a close look at the most common causes of injury in the United States.
Most Common Causes of Injury in the U.S.
In 2023, unintentional injuries were the main reason for emergency department visits across the United States, highlighting how quickly everyday situations can become serious medical events.
8.87 million people were treated for unintentional falls alone: that’s nearly half (49.9%) of all injury cases recorded over the year. Falls remain the dominant cause of injuries not only because they affect nearly every age group, but because they disproportionately impact two vulnerable populations. Children, who are naturally more active and prone to putting themselves in harm’s way, and older adults, who regularly face risks associated with mobility, balance, and chronic conditions. Fall-related injuries can include minor sprains, major fractures, traumatic brain injuries, and long-term disabilities, making them a key focus for both injury prevention advocates and healthcare systems.
After falls, the next most common cause of injuries was struck-by or struck-against injuries, which accounted for 2.9 million ER visits. These types of injuries cover a wide spectrum: recreational and sports impacts, workplace injuries, collisions with equipment or structures, and everyday household accidents. Their prevalence underscores how both structured environments (schools, construction sites, and sports fields) and casual settings (kitchens and living rooms) remain prime sites of preventable harm.
Motor vehicle occupant injuries were also a significant factor, causing 2.3 million hospital visits. Despite improved safety features, better vehicle technology, and widespread public awareness campaigns, car accidents are still a huge injury factor and affect drivers, passengers, and families across all regions.
A further 1.86 million people were treated for ‘Unintentional: Other Specified’ incidents, an umbrella term that’s important when we consider injury surveillance. This category combines multiple clearly identified, low-frequency causes of injury, such as those that involve tools, household equipment, recreational devices, or environmental hazards. Although this category is overshadowed by falls or motor vehicle crashes, ‘other specified’ cases reflect the unpredictable, everyday nature of thousands of accidental injuries.
Injuries caused by overexertion (1.82 million) complete the list of the top five leading causes of ER visits, with lifting, repetitive movement, sports training, physically demanding jobs, and even strenuous household chores regularly causing injuries.
Yet what types of injury do these combined factors most commonly cause?
Common Injuries Sustained
Across the five major injury causes, falls overwhelmingly dominate. Falls alone accounted for 814,088 fractures, 78.3% of all fracture cases, making them the clear leading cause of severe bone injuries. Falls also caused 308,910 sprains and strains (40.7% of all cases), and a dominant share of soft-tissue and surface-level trauma, including 400,957 contusions and abrasions (71.9%) and 116,021 lacerations (75.9%). Falls were also responsible for 66,519 dislocations (46.1% of cases).
While falls dominate the dataset, injuries classified as ‘Other Specified’ emerge as the next most substantial contributor across several diagnoses. The ‘Other Specified’ category includes clearly identified, lower-frequency accident types that don’t fit more traditional categories. Overall, this type of injury caused 177,516 fractures (17.1% of all fractures), 111,867 contusions (20.1%), plus, most notably, the highest overall proportion of dislocations, 47.6%, or 68,704 cases. The latter numbers reflect a combination of unusual incidents, atypical impacts, and uncommon accident types disproportionately associated with joint displacement and instability.
Overexertion – the only cause that doesn’t attribute falls as its leading statistic – is responsible for an overwhelming 391,763 sprains and strains (51.6% of all cases), the largest share of any diagnosis in this dataset. This reflects the strong connection between overuse, repetitive motion, and soft-tissue injury. Although overexertion injury figures feature low numbers of fractures, contusions, lacerations, or dislocations, its sprains and strains tally highlights how physical stress and biomechanical overload shape injury patterns in ways that differ from acute-impact events.
Meanwhile, struck-by/against incidents and motor-vehicle occupant injuries contribute significant but comparatively small shares. Struck-by injuries account for 4.6% of contusions, 7.2% of lacerations, 2.1% of fractures, and 1% of dislocations, reflecting classic impact-related trauma like sports collisions, workplace accidents, and household mishaps. Motor-vehicle occupant injuries represent 6.4% of lacerations, 2.7% of contusions, 1.9% of fractures, and 1.7% of dislocations. This indicates that while car crashes are serious, they make up a relatively small proportion of nonfatal injuries treated in emergency departments.
Overall, the dataset shows consistent trends: falls are the leading cause of nearly every diagnosis, ‘Other Specified’ injuries play a disproportionate role in fractures and dislocations, and overexertion drives high numbers of sprains and strains. This tells us that falls cause multiple simultaneous injury types, while other injuries influence more specific diagnosis patterns.
In all cases, specific parts of the body are harmed, with the following those bearing the brunt of emergency-department related injuries.
Body Parts Most Commonly Injured
The compiled data makes it abundantly clear that some parts of the body are far more susceptible to injury than others, revealing clear patterns in how different regions are affected when accidents happen.
The face is the most frequently injured area (794,000 cases), with about 41.8% of facial injuries involving the kinds of general trauma that reflect the face’s exposure to sudden impacts, slips, or mishaps.
The lower trunk (which includes the lower back, hips, and abdomen) is also heavily affected (614,000 injuries). 56% of lower trunk injuries involve stress, strain, or irritation connected to movement, posture, and physical exercise. This emphasizes how reliant we all are on this part of the body and how easily it can be damaged by sudden or awkward movement.
The neck (609,000 injuries) features a high proportion of injuries (37.2%) that fall into broad, non-specific categories, numbers that reveal how sensitive the neck is to jolts, awkward tilts and turns, or abrupt changes in motion.
Of the head’s 506,000 emergency-room-treated injuries, over a quarter (27.7%) are due to general trauma that resists simple classification. This indicates the wide variety of ways the head can be injured, from bumps and slips to low-level collisions. In each separate case, the injury may give rise to a combination of symptoms that don’t observe a specific injury pattern.
In just over 50% of 394,000 emergency room cases involving the mouth, injuries cause significant structural damage. This is because the mouth features delicate bones and soft tissues that are both easily affected by even moderate impact.
Together, these trends tell us that the most frequently injured body regions tend to be those most exposed during falls or impacts, or those most involved in movement and balance.
The percentage patterns also confirm that while some areas experience general or surface-level trauma, others (like the mouth) may sustain more substantial physical effects. Such information provides a more rounded picture of bodily injury hotspots and the kinds of unique trauma various regions experience.
Our study data also confirms which age groups suffer the highest number of different types of injury.
The Age Groups Suffering Most Specific Injury Types
Across all major nonfatal injury mechanisms, compelling data confirms some age-specific patterns that reveal how risk evolves across childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and older age.
Falls are by far the leading cause of injury among older adults, with people 65 and older suffering a staggering 3,850,612 fall-related injuries. This number reflects both the natural loss of balance and muscle strength that accompanies aging, as well as the increasing risk represented by stairs, uneven floors, and household hazards. In contrast, injuries tied to rapid movement, physical contact, and high-energy activities peak during youth and early adulthood.
Struck-by/against injuries occur most often among 15–24-year-olds (576,829 incidents), reflecting this group’s high participation in sports, social activities, manual labor jobs, and time spent in environments where high contact or collision risks are common.
This same age group leads in motor vehicle occupant injuries (512,859 cases), underscoring the combined impact of driving inexperience, high exposure to nighttime driving, and elevated rates of distraction or risk-taking behaviors.
Similarly, overexertion injuries (from lifting, pulling, pushing, and muscle strain) peak among 15-24 year-olds (351,575 cases), due to physically demanding work roles and intense recreational activity.
‘Other Specified’ injuries peak with 35-44 year-olds (402,759 cases), highlighting the fact that adults in early middle age experience a comparatively broad range of miscellaneous hazards. These include home improvements, childcare-related accidents, occupational factors, and varied physical activities.
Altogether, the dataset reveals a clear life-stage pattern. Older adults are disproportionately vulnerable to falls; teens and young adults are more susceptible to struck-by events, overexertion, and motor vehicle crashes; and middle-aged adults are subject to the broadest range of ‘other specified’ injuries tied to everyday responsibilities. These patterns show how shifts in physical ability, lifestyle, work environments, and activity intensity gradually shape injury risk.
In terms of gender risk, men accounted for the largest share of injury-related emergency department visits in 2023: more than 15.1 million cases, compared to 12.5 million visits by women.
While both groups represent substantial proportions of the national injury burden, male figures confirm higher levels of exposure to high-risk activities, more physical labor, more participation in sports, and more transport-related incidents.
(Note: a small number of recorded ER visits (28,270 cases) were categorized as ‘unknown sex’, reflecting the standard limitations of large-scale injury surveillance (without altering the overall distribution). This pattern aligns with long-standing national trends confirming that men experience a disproportionately higher volume of nonfatal injuries compared to women.
Another key data factor is the location at which the injuries occur.
Common Injury Locations
The home emerges as the location where most injuries occur, driven largely by the overwhelming volume of fall-related incidents. Falls consistently account for the highest overall national injury totals. Because they usually occur in residential spaces, such as bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, stairs, porches, and other everyday household areas, this determines the home as the dominant injury setting.
Routine activities like walking, climbing stairs, carrying items, cleaning, and navigating cluttered or slippery surfaces are huge contributors to home-based falls.
Beyond falls, many struck-by/against injuries also originate in the home due to contact with/use of household furniture, doors, equipment, toys, and pets. The home is where people spend most of their time, a factor that naturally increases exposure to everyday hazards.
Work environments represent the second-most common setting for injuries, largely tied to factors such as overexertion, struck-by/against incidents, and a wide range of other job-related tasks. Workplaces often involve lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, repetitive motion, operating machinery, or navigating high-activity environments, all of which increase the likelihood of musculoskeletal strain or physical impact injuries. Struck-by events in the workplace frequently involve tools, equipment, machinery, inventory, or fast-paced tasks, while miscellaneous injuries can arise from multitasking, environmental hazards, or occupational issues. Although workplace injuries are substantial, their totals still fall well below home-based injuries.
Roadways and transportation settings are other major injurious environments, primarily due to motor vehicle occupant incidents. These injuries occur during collisions, abrupt stops, lane changes, distracted driving, weather-related hazards, and other traffic-related events. While road injuries tend to be disproportionately severe and often require hospital-level care, they’re less frequent than home- or work-based injuries. Road exposure is also more limited, with people spending far less time in vehicles than in their homes or workplaces. This naturally reduces the comparative volume of transportation-related injuries.
Taken as a whole, environmental data reveals clear patterns, with the home the place where most injuries occur, followed by the workplace, and final roads. The statistics reflect how everyday movement, occupational demands, and transportation patterns shape the landscape of unintentional injuries in the U.S.
Recreational Activity Danger
Recreational activities are a common source of injuries across all age groups. According to the National Safety Council, more than 4.4 million sport- and recreation-related injuries were treated in U.S. emergency departments. The chief causes were exercise equipment, bicycling, basketball, football, and playground equipment.
Among children and teens, CDC data suggests that sports and recreation activities annually account for around 283,000 traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), predominantly due to football, soccer, basketball, gymnastics/cheer, and playground falls. Across the general population (aged 5 and older), the same data indicates an annual 8.6 million medically treated sports and recreation injuries, with cycling, running/jogging, strength training, skateboarding, swimming, and general outdoor recreational play the most common causes.
Across all age groups, patterns consistently show that activities people see as ‘routine’ or ‘low-risk’ (for example, using a treadmill, lifting weights, or riding a bike) are significant contributors to national injury totals. These findings reinforce the fact that recreational injuries are not restricted to competitive athletes; they affect children, teens, and adults of all ages alike. This means recreation is one of the most important and underestimated contributors to the use of injury-related healthcare in the U.S., and one of numerous factors that cumulatively cost staggering sums of money.
The Economic Costs of Unintentional Injuries
The economic cost of unintentional injuries in the United States is immense. And the vast majority of the overall cost is due to a small number of injury types.
Falls (by far the costliest factor) generate $59.7 billion in medical expenses due to over 6.7 million emergency-department visits.
Struck-by or struck-against injuries ($11.22 billion), motor-vehicle occupant injuries ($10.66 billion), and injuries from overexertion ($9.90 billion) also cost staggering amounts each year. These figures reflect the broad range of impact-related incidents that happen at home, the continual toll of transport-related incidents (despite major vehicle safety improvements), and the extent to which everyday physical activities drive injury costs.
‘Other Specified’ injuries ($5.82 billion) refers to less common, medically significant accident types not represented by larger categories. Combined, these injuries clearly show that a narrow spectrum of everyday factors, including falls, impacts, strains, and marginal transport issues, cost tens of billions in preventable medical costs every year.
How to Reduce the Unintentional Injury Crisis in America
Reducing the national unintentional injury burden starts with simple, evidence-supported prevention strategies. These include improving home safety with better lighting and by removing obvious hazards, using protection for sporting activities (helmets and mouthguards), practicing proper lifting and movement techniques to avoid overexertion, supervising children during recreational play, and driving safely by wearing seatbelts and minimizing distractions.
These basic safety measures are increasingly important. Each year, over 27 million people seek emergency care for causes ranging from routine household falls to high-speed motor-vehicle crashes. The distribution of injuries reveals clear and predictable patterns.
Falls remain the overall leading cause of harm and generate the most fractures, sprains, contusions, and soft-tissue injuries—especially among older adults and young children, who are particularly vulnerable to environmental hazards and mobility challenges.
Impact-related incidents, such as struck-by or struck-against injuries, account for several million additional hospital visits. These frequently occur during sports, recreational, household, and workplace activities. Motor-vehicle occupant injuries and overexertion are also significant contributors to both the volume and severity of national injuries, while a wide variety of ‘other specified’ events highlight the less frequent, unpredictable ways everyday life can result in harm.
Falls alone accounted for 814,088 fractures, 78.3% of all fracture cases, making them the clear leading cause of severe bone injuries
Clear age-driven risk patterns emerge. Children and teens experience high rates of sports and recreation injuries; young adults face greater risks from high-contact activity, overexertion, and motor-vehicle crashes; and older adults remain disproportionately affected by falls.
Males account for the majority of injury-related emergency department visits, reflecting their higher exposure to physically intense, fast-paced, risk-heavy activities across multiple settings. Recreational activities further compound the gender disparity, with examples such as cycling, running, weight training, basketball, football, and time spent on the playground causing millions of injuries each year across all age groups.
The economic impact is staggering. And just five major injury mechanisms (falls, struck-by/against injuries, motor-vehicle occupant incidents, overexertion, and miscellaneous specified causes) account for more than $97 billion annual medical costs.
Overall, the data tells us that the most common and costly injuries are due to familiar environments and everyday activities. This evidence emphasizes the urgent need for the wider adoption of practical, readily available safety measures at home, at work, during recreation, and on the road. With just a few small mindful changes, we can prevent hundreds of thousands of broken bones, strains, contusions, hours spent in emergency departments, and dollars needlessly spent on medical bills.
To succeed in your injury claim, you will need the help of an experienced Charlotte lawyer who can guide you through the legal process and fight for the compensation you deserve. At Shane Smith Law, we have over 100 years of combined experience, and we’re ready to put our experience to work for you.
