Sprains, strains, and falls account for the largest share of injuries across nearly every age group and setting. In U.S. high school sports alone, sprains and strains make up 36.8% of all reported injuries, while falls are the single leading cause of nonfatal injury for children from infancy through age 10. At work, contact incidents, overexertion, and falls each cause roughly half a million cases per year that result in missed workdays.
Sprains and Strains
Sprains and strains top the list in both sports and everyday life. Though people often use the terms interchangeably, they involve different tissues. A sprain is a stretch or tear of a ligament, the tough band that connects one bone to another at a joint. A strain is an injury to a muscle or tendon, the cord that attaches muscle to bone. Ankles, knees, and wrists are the joints most frequently sprained, while strains commonly hit the lower back and hamstrings.
Mild versions of both injuries heal with rest, ice, compression, and elevation over a few weeks. Moderate sprains often require a brace or walking boot to immobilize the joint while the ligament repairs itself. The most severe sprains, where the ligament tears completely, sometimes need surgery. Strains follow a similar arc: minor ones recover in days to weeks, while a full muscle or tendon tear can take months of rehabilitation.
Falls
Falls are remarkably consistent as an injury source across the lifespan. For babies and toddlers, they are overwhelmingly the top cause of emergency department visits, with an estimated 246,553 fall-related injuries among 1-year-olds and 224,028 among 2-year-olds in a single year. Children under 10 fall from furniture, playground equipment, and stairs as they develop coordination and balance.
For adults over 65, falls carry far more serious consequences. Over 95% of hip fractures in older adults are caused by falls, though only about 1% to 2% of falls actually result in a hip fracture. The CDC estimates the annual medical cost of older adult falls at $50 billion across the U.S. healthcare system. Bone density loss, balance problems, medication side effects, and vision changes all raise the risk as people age. Broken hips, wrist fractures, and head injuries are the most common outcomes when an older adult falls hard.
Concussions
Concussions are the second most common sports injury among high school athletes, representing 21.6% of all diagnoses. The head and face are the most frequently injured body region in high school sports at 24.2%. A concussion happens when an impact to the head or body changes how the brain functions, even briefly. Most concussions do not cause a loss of consciousness.
Symptoms typically include headache, confusion, nausea, blurry vision, and fatigue. Some signs show up immediately, while others, like trouble concentrating, irritability, sleep problems, and sensitivity to light, may not appear for days. Most people recover fully, but symptoms can linger for weeks or occasionally longer. A concussion that follows a previous one before the brain has healed carries a higher risk of prolonged recovery.
Workplace Injuries
The three leading causes of workplace injuries requiring days away from work are remarkably close in scale. In 2023 and 2024, contact incidents (being struck by or caught in objects or equipment) caused about 499,270 lost-workday cases. Overexertion from lifting, pushing, pulling, or repetitive motion followed closely at 492,140 cases. Falls, slips, and trips accounted for 479,480 cases.
Overexertion injuries are especially common in jobs involving manual handling: warehouse work, construction, nursing, and delivery. These injuries often affect the back, shoulders, and knees. Repetitive motion injuries, a subset of overexertion, develop gradually in office workers, assembly line employees, and anyone performing the same physical task for hours. Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most frequently diagnosed repetitive strain injury, typically triggered by prolonged wrist flexion during typing or similar tasks. Tendonitis in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists is also common among workers who perform repetitive overhead or gripping motions without adequate rest breaks.
Exposure to harmful substances or environments was previously inflated by COVID-19 illness reporting but has since dropped to the fourth most common workplace injury category.
Fractures
Broken bones represent a smaller but more serious slice of total injuries. Among high school athletes, fractures account for 3.5% of all injuries, with boys experiencing them at roughly twice the rate of girls (4.2% versus 2.0%). Outside of sports, fractures most often result from falls, car crashes, and high-impact collisions. The wrist, ankle, and hip are the bones broken most frequently in the general population, with hip fractures being particularly dangerous for older adults due to complications during recovery.
Injuries in Children and Teens
The pattern of childhood injuries shifts predictably with age. From infancy through age 10, unintentional falls dominate emergency room visits. Starting around age 11, “struck by or against” injuries take the top spot, reflecting increased participation in contact sports, rougher play, and more physical peer interaction. By ages 17 and 18, transportation-related injuries (car crashes, motorcycle and bicycle incidents) become the leading cause of both nonfatal injury and death.
Poisoning is a smaller but notable risk that changes dramatically with age. It accounts for less than 5% of unintentional injury deaths from infancy through age 14. But among 18-year-olds, poisoning causes 16% of unintentional injury deaths, and among 19-year-olds, 21.1%. This sharp increase largely reflects drug and alcohol exposure in late adolescence.
Overuse and Repetitive Injuries
Not all injuries come from a single event. Overuse injuries develop when a muscle, tendon, or joint is stressed repeatedly without enough time to recover. Tendonitis (inflammation of a tendon) is the most broadly common form, affecting shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and Achilles tendons. Carpal tunnel syndrome, where swelling compresses a nerve in the wrist, is especially prevalent among people who type extensively, work cash registers, or use vibrating tools.
Risk factors include poor posture, working long hours without breaks, repetitive overhead movements, and sustained gripping or typing positions. These injuries tend to start as mild aching and progress to constant pain and weakness if the repetitive activity continues. Early changes to ergonomics and rest patterns usually prevent them from becoming chronic.
The Economic Scale of Injuries
Injuries carry an enormous financial burden. The total cost of injuries in the United States in 2019 was $4.2 trillion, according to the CDC. That figure includes healthcare spending, lost work productivity, and estimated costs for diminished quality of life and lives lost. Traumatic brain injuries alone generated over $40.6 billion in annual healthcare costs for nonfatal cases. Older adult falls added another $50 billion. These numbers underscore that injuries are not just a clinical issue but one of the largest drivers of healthcare spending in the country.