Assessing the Feasibility of Creating an Integrated Crash and Injury Data System for Texas

Despite advances in traffic safety and injury prevention, a considerable number of fatal and nonfatal injuries occur on Texas roadways each year. This comes at a tremendous cost both in terms of years of life lost; loss of quality of life in terms of physical and mental health, treatment expenses, property loss; and other monetary expenses. The combined cost of fatal crashes in Texas from 2003?2013 was over $200 billion according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Clearly, additional collaborative research is needed in order to reduce the burden of traffic crashes and related injuries on Texans. A number of data systems exist in Texas that could be linked in order to create an integrated crash and injury data system so that a complete picture of crashes and their consequences could be created. Joining these systems enables new approaches toward the development of crash prevention programs and countermeasures using a wide array of multidisciplinary engineering and public health approaches as well as clinical interventions that improve treatment outcomes and decrease recovery times. To assess the feasibility of constructing an integrated crash and injury data system in Texas, this pilot study achieved two objectives in a short time frame: (1) Linked motor-vehicle crash data from the Texas Department of Transportation Crash Record Information System with patient trauma records from the Memorial Hermann Hospital Texas Trauma Institute/UTHealth at Houston and (2) Demonstrated that analyzing the linked dataset can yield new information supportive of injury prevention efforts. This analysis included identifying crash-related factors associated with a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury, among the most costly and devastating injuries. It also involved examining agreement in the two datasets with respect to the coding of injury severity and alcohol involvement. Findings support that crash and injury data from Texas can be linked in order to create a high quality, analyzable dataset. Preliminary analyses demonstrated that the pilot linked dataset, although small and geographically focused, supported statistical analyses and yielded new information. Findings also illustrated the need for a larger, statewide system.