Citation

Puac-Polanco V, Keyes KM, Li G. Inj. Epidemiol. 2016; 3(1): e19.

Affiliation

Departments of Anesthesiology and Epidemiology, Columbia University in the City of New York, New York, NY USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, The author(s), Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/s40621-016-0083-6

PMID

27547704

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Motorcyclists are known to be at substantially higher risk per mile traveled of dying from crashes than car occupants. In 2014, motorcycling made up less than 1 % of person-miles traveled but 13 % of the total mortality from motor-vehicle crashes in the United States. We assessed the cohort effect of the baby-boomers (i.e., those born between 1946 and 1964) in motorcycle crash mortality from 1975 to 2014 in the United States.

METHODS: Using mortality data for motorcycle occupants from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, we performed an age-period-cohort analysis using the multiphase method and the intrinsic estimator method.

RESULTS: Baby-boomers experienced the highest mortality rates from motorcycle crashes at age 20-24 years and continued to experience excess mortality after age 40 years. After removing the effects of age and period, the estimated mortality risk from motorcycle crashes for baby-boomers was 48 % higher than that of the referent cohort (those born between 1930 and 1934, rate ratio 1.48; 95 % CI: 1.01, 2.18).

RESULTS from the multiphase method and the intrinsic estimator method were consistent.

CONCLUSIONS: The baby-boomers have experienced significantly higher mortality from motorcycle crashes than other birth cohorts. To reduce motorcycle crash mortality, intervention programs specifically tailored for the baby-boomer generation are warranted.

Language: en