A note on the head injury criterion (HIC) as a predictor of the risk of skull fracture

Hertz, Ellen

Affiliations

¹National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Washington, DC

Abstract

Candidate curves are developed, using cadaveric data, that express the probability of skull fracture as a function of HIC. The statistical method uses the concept of thresholds that are both right and left censored. This is done using SAS.

Some simple measures of goodness of fit are applied to each of these two-parameter models to select a "best" one. The lognormal and the Weibull are close and both are good by these criteria.

A reduction in HIC from 1,000 to 800 would result in an estimated reduction of 21.7 percent in the risk of skull fracture.

Cited Works (3)

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Cited By (32)

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1996	Morgan RM, Eppinger RH, Kuppa SM, Taylor LM. Thoracic trauma assessment for the Hybrid III dummy in simulated frontal crashes. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 13-16, 1996; Melbourne, Australia.1605-1621.
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2024	Ressi F, Klug C. Stochastic replication of injury risks in frontal collisions with different human body models in a generic vehicle interior. In: Proceedings of the 2024 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 11-13, 2024; Stockholm, Sweden.1168-.
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1994	Morgan RM, Eppinger RH, Haffner MP, Yoganandan N, Pintar FA, Sances A, Crandall JR, Pilkey WD, Klopp GS, Kallieris D, Miltner E, Mattern R, Kuppa SM, Sharpless CL. Thoracic trauma assessment formulations for restrained drivers in simulated frontal impacts. In: Proceedings of the 38th Stapp Car Crash Conference. October 31–November 2, 1994; Fort Lauderdale, FL. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers:15-34. SAE 942206.
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2011	Loyd AM. Studies of the Human Head from Neonate to Adult: An Inertial, Geometrical and Structural Analysis With Comparisons to the ATD Head [PhD thesis]. Duke University; 2011.
2017	Wu LC. Developing an Instrumented Mouthguard to Study Human Mild Traumatic Brain Injury [PhD thesis]. Stanford University; August 2017.
2020	Shang S. Pedestrian Whole Body Ground Contact Mechanisms and Head Injury Assessment Following Vehicle Impact [PhD thesis]. Trinity College Dublin; April 2020.
2014	Patton DA. The Biomechanical Determinants of Sports-Related Concussion: Finite Element Simulations of Unhelmeted Head Impacts to Evaluate Kinematic and Tissue-Level Predictors of Injury and Investigate the Design Implications for Soft-Shell Headgear [PhD thesis]. University of New South Wales; March 2014.
2009	Cormier JM. Epidemiology and Biomechanical Analysis of Facial Fractures [PhD thesis]. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; February 6, 2009.
2008	Raymond DE. Biomechanics of Blunt Ballistic Temporo-Parietal Head Impact [PhD thesis]. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University; August 2008.
2022	Kamal SR. Monitoring HDAC Class Ila Activity in the Rat Brain After Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Using Noninvasive Pet Imaging With [¹⁸F]TFAHA [PhD thesis]. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University; May 2022.
2015	Vavalle NA. The Application of a Radial Basis Function Morphing Technique to a Validated Full Human Body Finite Element Model [PhD thesis]. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University; May 2015.