Motor vehicle crash injuries among the elderly are an important public health problem. We sought to determine if older individuals (65 years and older) had worse self-reported physical functioning and mental health status than younger adults (18-64 years) at 6 and 12 months post-injury, while controlling for pre-injury functional status, comorbidity, and injury severity. We used data from two sites of the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) study. After exclusion based on missing Short Form-36 (SF-36) values, the final sample consisted of 579 CIREN cases;​ there were 500 individuals age 18-64 and 79 individuals (13.6%) age 65 or older. The outcome measures included the physical functioning scale (PFS), vitality scale (VS), and mental health scale (MHS) of the SF-36. The proportion of younger and older adults that had comorbidity was 17.6% and 54.4%, respectively. Multivariate linear regression models indicated that comorbidity, baseline PFS, and severe injury (Injury Severity Score [ISS] 25+ vs. ISS < 8) were significantly associated with PFS scores at 6 months, but only comorbidity and baseline PFS were associated with PFS at 12 months. Multivariate models indicated that only pre-injury VS (p < .001) was associated with the VS at 6 months, but that both comorbidity (p < .01) and pre-injury VS (p < .001) were associated with VS at 12 months. MHS at 6 months was significantly associated with only the baseline MHS score, but both comorbidity and pre-injury MHS were associated with MHS at 12 months. There was no significant difference in the change in any of the SF-36 domains during the study year. Advanced age was not associated with lower self-reported health in any of the three SF-36 domains compared to younger age when pre-injury ISS and comorbidity were included in the model.