• Emma B Sartin, Melissa R Pfeiffer, Thomas Hartka, Mark R Zonfrillo, Federico E Vaca, Kristina B Metzger, Anthoni M Goodman, Allison E Curry, and Rachel K Myers.
• Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Electronic address: sartine@chop.edu.
• Am J Prev Med. 2024 Jul 25.

IntroductionPrior work has found incongruencies in injury information reported by crash and hospital records. However, no work has focused on child passengers. The objective of this study was to compare crash scene and hospital-reported injury information for crash-involved child passengers. This study also explored injury location and severity by child age and restraint type.MethodsUtilizing linked New Jersey data from 2017 through 2019, the authors identified crash-involved child passengers <13 years old and their injuries in crash and hospital reports. Then, they characterized the congruency of injury frequency, severity, and location, as well as the frequency of injuries by child age and restraint type. Analyses were conducted from December 2023 through February 2024.ResultsOf 84,060 crash-involved child passengers, crash reports documented 7,858 (9%) children with at least "possible" injuries, while 2,577 (3%) had at least one injury in hospital events. Crash report and hospital data were incongruent for both body region of injury and injury severity. The proportion of children injured increased as children's ages increased and as restraint type progressed.ConclusionsCrash reports overestimated the number of injured child passengers and misrepresented injury severity and locations. Child restraint systems mitigated a child's injury risk. Importantly, injury information documented on crash reports currently informs the allocation of traffic safety resources. These results highlight the importance of improving these reports' accuracy and underscore calls to link administrative datasets for public health efforts.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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