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National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS)

Welcome to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System

For more than 45 years, the CPSC has operated a statistically valid injury surveillance and follow-back system known as the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). The primary purpose of NEISS is to collect data on consumer product-related injuries occurring in the United States. CPSC uses these data to produce nationwide estimates of product-related injuries.

NEISS is based on a nationally representative probability sample of hospitals in the U.S. and its territories. Each participating NEISS hospital reports patient information for every emergency department visit associated with a consumer product or a poisoning to a child younger than five years of age. The total number of product-related hospital emergency department visits nationwide can be estimated from the sample of cases reported in the NEISS.

NEISS has become an important public health research tool, not just for CPSC, but also for researchers and consumers throughout the United States and around the world. In 2000, CPSC expanded NEISS to collect data on all injuries for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through an interagency agreement. The next major update to NEISS occurred in 2018 with the addition of seven new variables: Diagnosis_2, Other_Diagnosis_2, and Body_Part_2, Product_3, Ethnicity, Alcohol_Involved, and Drug_Involved. In addition to the new variables, the maximum length of the Narrative text was increased from 142 to 400 characters. These changes were effective starting with treatment date January 1, 2019.

NEISS: Frequently Asked Questions
 

New for 2023 Treatment Dates

There are no new or deleted product codes for 2023. One product code name was changed starting with treatment date January 1, 2023 (listed below): 

  • 0712 - new title: Carbon monoxide alarms and detectors

The definition of the sex/gender variable was clarified to refer to gender, with the exception of intersex individuals.  Individuals whose gender identity corresponds with the sex registered at birth are coded in category 1-Male or 2-Female.  The third category, 3-Gender Diverse & Intersex, was clarified to include individuals with gender diverse identities, and intersex individuals.

Ways to Access NEISS Data

NEISS data from the most recent 20 years are available online. The most recent calendar year of treatment dates generally become available in April of the following year. To access NEISS data, click on the Access NEISS button below. On the NEISS Query page, select your User Affiliation and then select one of the following options.

  • NEISS Data Highlights 
    CPSC staff produces annual NEISS Data Highlights reports that summarize injury data by major product groups, product subgroups, age, and sex. These reports are published in mid to late April and are a good entry point to understanding the kind of data available through NEISS.
     
  • Archived Annual NEISS Data
    Each NEISS dataset contains a complete year of data, spanning treatment dates January 1 - December 31 and is available as an Excel, tab delimited file, or SAS file. The datasets are the easiest way to get a comprehensive look at all product-related emergency department visits contained in the NEISS for a given year.

    Each dataset contains brief narratives describing NEISS incident scenarios. These narratives can be used to extract data that are not captured by specific product codes within NEISS. For example, within NEISS there are product codes for “bicycles”, but there is no code for “eating”. In order to determine a national estimate of people who were injured on their bicycle while eating, you would need to download a dataset and search bicycle incident narratives for instances of “eating”.
    NEISS Data Dictionary (Excel file)
     
  • NEISS Estimates Query Builder 
    Use the NEISS Query Builder to view and download national product injury estimates based on customized search criteria.
    Instructions for Using the NEISS Estimates Query Builder

 

Access NEISS

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