Citation

Veliz P. JAMA Pediatr. 2019; 173(4): 399.

Affiliation

School of Nursing, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.0001

PMID

30801620

Abstract

To the Editor Taylor et al1 present data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (2011-2012) to estimate the lifetime prevalence of parent-reported traumatic brain injury in a national sample of US children. The NSCH is a cross-sectional telephone survey (response rate of 23%) of adults. These adult respondents were asked the following question regarding their selected child between ages 0 and 17 years: “Has a doctor or other health care provider ever told you that [your child] had…a brain injury or concussion?”1 Based on this question, Taylor et al1 found that parent-reported traumatic brain injury among children aged 0 through 17 years was 2.5% in the United States (5.9% among children aged 15 to 17 years). While the authors present needed epidemiologic information on traumatic brain injury/concussion rates across a critical developmental period, it must be highlighted that these estimates in large-scale surveys are sensitive to several biases that include how the question was worded (eg, lifetime vs past year), who responded to the survey (eg, adult vs child), and how the survey was delivered (eg, telephone vs pen and paper). To illustrate the sensitivity of these estimates to survey bias, 3 national surveys assessing head injuries among children and adolescents are presented: the National Health Interview Survey (2016 child sample), the Monitoring the Future Survey (MTF; 2016), and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2017). First, the National Health Interview Survey is a national household survey that uses computer-assisted personal interviewing.2 Parents answer the questions for their children. The survey question was asked in the following manner ...

Language: en