Seat belts and neck injuries

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Maag, Urs^1,2; Desjardins, Denise²; Bourbeau, Robert^2,3; Laberge-Nadeau, Claire^2,4

Seat belts and neck injuries

Proceedings of the 1990 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact

Affiliations

¹Département d'informatique et de recherche operationnelle

²Laboratoire sur la securite des transports du Centre de recherche sur les transports (C.R.T.), UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL C.P. 6128, succursale A, Montreal, Quebec H3C 337.

³Département de démographie

⁴Département de medecine sociale et preventive
Abstract

This article, part of a recently completed research project on safety belts, presents results on neck injuries. A total of 3927 injured front seat occupants (drivers and passengers) involved in two-car crashes were considered. Among them, 725 sustained a neck sprain (ICD-9:847.0), some of them may have sustained other injuries as well. The more serious injuries to the cervical spine were more prevalent among the unbelted occupants. Neck sprains were relatively more numerous among belted occupants conpared with unbelted ones with a relative risk estimate of 1.68. Similar results hold also for subsets of the data on different types of collisions; the relative risks range from 1.39 to 2.42. A loglinear model was constructed for the odds ratio (neck sprain versus no neck sprain) taking into account the factors seat belt, direction of impact, authorized speed limit and vehicle weight. The resulting relative risk estimate (belted VS unbelted) is now 1,58. The results raise questions about seat belts and protection against neck sprains.

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Cited By (16)

Year	Entry
1991	Fildes BN, Lane JC, Lenard J, Vulcan AP. Passenger Cars and Occupant Injury. Monash University Accident Research Centre, Cr95. Canberra, Australia: Federal Office of Road Safety; March 1991. Report No. CR95.
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