Stats without the rats: The not so boring statistics of brain injury and why you should be interested.

Statistics

Why present the statistics of brain injury?

Well it reminds us, we are each highly likely to have some experience of brain injury at some point in our life. This makes it worthwhile having some understanding of what it’s all about.

Most of us never hear of brain injury until it happens to ourselves, a family member, or a friend, or maybe we begin working with someone who has a brain injury. When you look at the statistics worldwide, brain injury is more common than most of us realize.

More Statistics:

Consider the following statistics, really, I am not a statistic kind of person, and I will keep them to a minimum. I just want to share a few to remind you of why you should be interested in brain injury.

“One billion people affected worldwide,”

Did you say ONE BILLION???

and  “50 million suffer from epilepsy and 24 million from Alzheimer and other dementias.

Neurological disorders affect people in all countries, irrespective of age, sex, education or income” in the World Health Organisation report, Neurological disorders: Public health challenges, 

    • Brain injury is the most common cause of death and disability in the world reports the International Brain Injury Association. You can see more statistics on their site here.
    • An estimated 10 million people worldwide are affected each year by Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
    • In the USA figures have reached 1:35 of the population
    • 1 in 10 people in Canada will know someone who has a brain injury. For more statistics see the Brain Injury Association of Waterloo – Wellington who describe brain injury as “the silent epidemic”.
    • The Australian census of 2003 finds 1:45 people with brain injury, the majority were less than 20 years of age.
    • The rates in most studies show that the rate of brain injury is higher in males than females at all ages.
    • Alzheimers disease and other dementias are projected to show a 66% increase from 2005 to 2030, for more information see report here.
    • Studies of the numbers of prisoners with traumatic brain injury have shown surprising results. A survey conducted among male state prisoners in Minnesota, showed that out of 998 prisoners 82.8% reported having had one or more head injuries during their lifetime, this was consistent with an earlier study (Slaughter et al., 2003) and with a study conducted in Sydney, Australia (Schofield PW, Et al. 2006) . Most were reported to be as a result of assaults, traffic and sports accidents.
And Even More:

So if you then take into account results of a Flinders university study that indicated these statistics are more likely to be underestimated. These numbers that are already mind-blowing, become even greater. Numbers of people live their lives with their diagnosed (or more often undiagnosed) brain injury without assistance from others, or having acknowledgement of their brain injury.

In addition to finding that brain injury is a global issue, a study found that the rate varied from country to country, for example South Africa has been estimated to TBI occur at 1.5 to 3.5 times that of the average rate for the world. ([typography font=”Cantarell” size=”11″ size_format=”px”] Bryan-Hancock, C & Harrison, JE 2010, The global burden of traumatic brain injury: preliminary results from the global burden of disease project, in Injury Prevention, vol 16, pp. A17-A17.[/typography])

So Why Tell You This?

Why is this information useful? Well apart from being an interesting, and frightening bundle of statistics it reminds us that there are many people around the world living and working with brain injury, this gives us a huge pool of experience, resources, and knowledge we can tap into.

 

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Sandra

    Congratulations Melanie! What a wonderful contribution to the world of brain injury from the perspective often ignored.

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