All-Terrain Vehicle-Related Emergency Department Visits: Interaction of Sex and Age, NEISS, 2019

Background: Epidemiologic patterns of all-terrain vehicle (ATV)-related emergency department (ED) visits by male and female individuals may vary at different ages. To our knowledge, this has not been researched previously.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the interaction of sex and age differences in their association with ATV-related ED visits.

Methods: Data from the 2019 National Electronic Injury Surveillance System were extracted for ATV-related ED visits, including sex, age, race, location of crash, injured body part, and whether alcohol was involved. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses were conducted. We modeled sex in separate multivariable models, adjusting for the same independent variables.

Results: There were an estimated 95,995 (unweighted n = 1999) ATV-related ED visits. There was a significant age-by-sex interaction in the association between ATV-related ED visits vs. other ED injuries, indicating that the effect of age on ATV-related ED visits differed by sex and vice versa. Overall, male individuals were 1.7 times as likely to have an ATV-related ED visit as female individuals. In the stratified analysis for female individuals, odds were substantially greater for girls younger than 18 years (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 2.33; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.61-3.69) and women aged 18-35 years (AOR 4.76; 95% CI 3.48-6.51) compared with woman older than 35 years. For men, odds were significant for ages 18-35 years (AOR 2.21; 95% CI 1.72-2.85) compared with men older than 35 years.

Conclusions: As newer ATVs become more powerful and faster, there is a need to know who is at greatest risk for ATV-related ED visits to develop policies and safety measures.