H. B. Weiss et al. / Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1 (2011) 202-207 207
third crashes for the small number with multiple crashes
also underestimates the overall crash risk. Therefore, the
incidence estimates probably err to the conservative side.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Using probabilistic linkage of crash and vital statistics
records we determined that in Pennsylvania at least 1.1%
of all pregnancies were involved in a driver related mo-
tor vehicle crash with little variance in risk over gesta-
tional age but higher crash rates among younger mothers.
Pennsylvania’s motor vehicle crash rate during pregnan-
cy might be on the lower end of the risk spectrum com-
pared to other states because of relatively older maternal
ages at birth and the overall lower crash injury risk in ol-
der women.
These data, combined with other evidence [2], confi-
rm that pregnancy related crashes occur at a higher rate
than infant related crashes with a concomitant threat to
the fetus and new-born that cannot be tracked within
current crash data systems without on-going data linkage
efforts. The National Highway Traffic Safety Admini-
stration (NHTSA) already has an existing network of
more than a dozen state-based programs that currently
link crash data to ambulance run reports called the Crash
Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) [18]. It wou-
ld not take many additional resources for those states to
add linkages to state vital statistics (birth and fetal death)
data, in effect setting up an inexpensive but robust preg-
nancy-related d river crash surveillan ce system for CODES
states. Without such efforts this important threat to the
fetus and newborn cannot be tracked and evaluated, re-
maining a hidden cause of crash injury and mortality to
the very youngest of crash victims.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (grant CCR
323155) at the University of Pittsburgh, Department of Neurological
Surgery, Center for Injury Research and Control. We gratefully ac-
knowledge the assistance of Dr. Michael McGlincy of Strategic Mat-
ching Inc. who served as this study’s honest broker and who performed
all of the probabilistic linkages.
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