Injury Cause Classifications
Injury Cause Classifications
Where do the data come from?
Information in the mortality (deaths) collection, originates with coroners, medical practitioners and persons
familiar with the deceased, is recorded by State and Territory Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and is further processed by the ABS.
Information in the MORBIDITY (hospitalisations) collection originates with State health departments.
What are E-codes?
Knowing the cause of an injury is the vital first step in preventing the injury from happening. While we can identify the nature of the injury (e.g., fracture) from hospital medical records, we cannot always determine the cause, or how the injury occurred (e.g., fall from playground equipment). E-codes (for the external cause of injury) are a supplement to the International Classification of Diseases codes, which provide a systematic way to classify information that doctors, nurses, paramedics, and social workers may put in the medical record.
E-codes may be grouped into large categories to classify falls, motor vehicle-related crashes, fires, drowning, poisonings, assaults, firearm injuries, etc. E codes may also be very precise: for example, several E-codes apply to the "falls" classification alone, including: E880.9—fall on or from steps or stairs other than an escalator; E881.1—fall from scaffolding; E882—fall from or out of a building; E884.0—fall from playground equipment; E884.1—fall from a cliff; E885—fall on the same level, such as slipping, tripping, or stumbling; E886.0—fall in sports due to pushing, shoving, colliding, or tackling.
E-codes help to recreate a picture of the specific circumstances of an injury—the how and the where. In conjunction with other data, E-codes become the foundation for many injury prevention activities to make communities safer.
The E-codes used for identifying both injury deaths and hospitalisations follow the classification system contained in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Supplementary Classification of External Causes of Injury and Poisoning.
Specifically,
- Deaths are coded according to Revision 9 of the above classification; and
- Hospitalisations according to ICD-9-CM (clinical modification) of the classification.
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