Two injury severity systems in widespread use by automobile manufacturers, motor vehicle accident investigators, researchers and trauma centers are the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and the National Accident Sampling System (NASS) Occupant Injury Classification. Updates of these systems by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM) (AIS-90) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) (NASS93), prevent data collected in differing versions of these systems from being accurately combined or trended without severity adjustments. This paper discusses and summarizes major differences between these coding systems, compares the number and percent distribution of injuries by severity, and reviews the need for methods to adjust severity. (A)
Samenvatting