Publication Details

The injured motorcyclist: A disproportionate consumer of public health funds?

Type: article

Author(s): Stutts, Jane C.; Rutledge, Robert; Martell, Carol L.

Abstract: Information on injury severity, hospital charges, discharge facility, and insurance status for 706 motorcycle operators and 68 passengers is compared with information on 9,000 other roadway crash victims and 15,500 non-roadway trauma victims treated at eight North Carolina trauma centers during the period October 1987 - June 1990. Motorcycle cases are then matched to the North Carolina motor vehile crash and driver history files to obtain additional information about the characteristics of the injured motorcyclist including police-reported helmet use and license status. Results show that motorcyclists and other road trauma patients experience similar injury severity distributions an required similar levels of treatment as measured by length of hospital stay, overall hospital charges, and discharge facility. Motorcyclists are more likely to be uninsured (42.7 vs. 35.5 percent), but less likely to rely on medicare / medicaid, and are just as likely as other road trauma patients to be commercially or privately insured. While only about half of theTrauma Registry cases could be matched to the motor vehicle crash file, the two populations are found to be similar in many important respects.