Falls and Fall Injuries Among Adults Aged ≥65 Years - United States, 2014.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional self-reported surveillance survey analysis (BRFSS)
PubMed 27656914 · doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6537a2
What was done
CDC researchers analyzed self-reported data from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey to calculate national estimates, percentages, and rates of falls and fall-related injuries among US adults aged 65 years and older.
What was found
In 2014, 28.7% of older adults reported falling, equating to an estimated 29.0 million falls and 7.0 million fall-related injuries nationwide. Additionally, approximately 27,000 older adults died from falls in 2014, 2.8 million were treated in emergency departments, and roughly 800,000 were hospitalized.
Why it matters
These surveillance figures establish that falls affect over a quarter of older Americans each year, quantifying a massive clinical and public health burden.
Limits
The abstract relies on retrospective self-reported survey data, which is vulnerable to recall and reporting bias. The exact sample size is not stated in the abstract, and state-level or demographic subgroup breakdowns mentioned in the objective are omitted from the abstract text.