Seat position and the risk of serious thoracoabdominal injury in lateral motor vehicle crashes [An article from: Accident Analysis and Prevention]

This digital document is a journal article from Accident Analysis and Prevention, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Context:: Previous studies have suggested that motor vehicle occupants seated on the near-side of a lateral impact have a higher proportion of thoracoabdominal injuries. However, due to limitations in previous studies, the true association between seat position, side of lateral impact, and thoracoabdominal injury is unclear. Objective:: To assess the relationship between seat position (i.e., near-side, middle-seat, and far-side, regardless of row), side of lateral motor vehicle crash (MVC), and serious thoracoabdominal injury after adjusting for important crash factors. Design:: National population-based cohort of adult subjects involved in MVCs and included in the National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System database (NASS CDS) from 1995 to 2003. Patients:: Occupants aged >=16 years involved in MVCs where the highest external deformation of the vehicle was located on the right or left side (i.e., lateral). Main outcome measure:: Serious thoracic or abdominal injury, defined as an Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) >=3 in the thoracic or abdominal body region. Results:: Fifteen thousand, one hundred and sixty persons involved in primary lateral MVCs were represented in the NASS CDS database during the 9-year period. There were 1867 (2%) persons with serious thoracic injuries and 507 persons (0.5%) with serious abdominal injuries. In multivariable logistic regression models that adjusted for important crash factors and the NASS CDS sampling design, seat position was a strong effect modifier of the association between side of lateral impact and serious thoracic (p