ABSTRACTS
Multi-Year Evaluation of Animal Involved Motorcycle Collisions in WisconsinAuthor: Jonathan Powell MPA, NRP | Epidemiologist | ImageTrend Associate Authors: Anderson, Morgan K. | Salewon, Macall Leslie | Koehne, William
Introduction Rescuers have characterized a high burden of motorcycle collisions involving animals in Wisconsin, though visualizing these events using emergency medical services (EMS) data can be challenging using pre-populated fields offering sometimes unspecific categorizations. To provide context and inform intervention strategies for these events, our objective was to identify and describe animal involved motorcycle collisions in Wisconsin using free-text patient narrative exploration. Methods We used a retrospective, cross-sectional study design examining all emergency medical services (EMS) activations in Wisconsin from January of 2018 to June of 2023. We identified all EMS motorcycle activations with injuries using motorcycle involved injury ICD-10 codes (e.g., V20, V21, V30, V39). We flagged narratives identified as animal related if that narrative contained animals documented by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as being present in Wisconsin (e.g., “turtle”, “snake”, “turkey”, “bear”, “elk”) in addition to more colloquial terms (e.g., “animal”, “critter”). We calculated descriptive statistics (n, %) for activation characteristics, crude rates of animal involvement per 100 motorcycle related collisions, and tested for trend changes over time using joinpoint regression. Results We identified 7,078 motorcycle related activations with injury over our study period. These activations occurred primarily among male (5,615, 79%) and white, non-Hispanic (4,955, 70%) patients. A quarter of these activations (1,695, 24%) included some documentation of animal involvement. Animal involved motorcycle activations had a higher proportion of white, non-Hispanic patients (90% vs 85%) compared to non-animal involved, but similar proportions across chief complaint injury systems. Joinpoint regression analysis revealed no observed inflection points by month, though crude animal involvement rates show a consistent rise in events over the study period with seasonality indicating warmer month increases. Conclusions These results indicate the need for expanded methods of patient care report record inclusion and consideration when observing animal involved strikes using EMS data. Presence of these recording elements can increase epidemiologic knowledge of these events and better prepare response strategies.
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