Failure to wear a helmet while motorcycling is bad for your head

Reference

Testerman GM, Prior DC, Wells TD, et al. Helmets matter: Kentucky motorcycle crash victims seen at a Tennessee trauma center. South Med J 2018;111(1):8-11.

Synopsis

Many studies regarding mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists have examined pre-law and post-law data. This study takes advantage of a natural experiment going on at the Tennessee-Virginia-Kentucky border, in which Kentucky is the only state of the 3 without a law mandating helmet use for all motorcycle riders. At a Level I trauma center serving the 3 states, these researchers identified all 729 motorcycle crash victims admitted to the center between mid-2005 and mid-2015. Among the Kentucky motorcyclists, 41% were wearing helmets, compared with 89% in Tennessee and 81% in Virginia. Compared with motorcyclists in the 2 other states, those in Kentucky had a higher in-hospital fatality rate (7.3% vs 4.3%; P < .001), as well as significantly longer lengths of stay, more severe head and neck injuries, and more surgeries. Not surprisingly, unhelmeted status across all 3 states predicted strikingly more severe head injuries and death (adjusted odds ratios 15.3 and 4.2, respectively). Note that this was a cohort of crash victims who survived long enough to be admitted. Unhelmeted heads were likely even more prevalent among those who died at the scene of the crash.