Falls are the most common injury in the United States by a wide margin. In 2023, unintentional falls sent nearly 8.9 million people to emergency departments, more than triple the next leading cause. That single category accounts for more ER visits than being struck by or against an object (2.9 million) and motor vehicle crashes (2.3 million) combined.
Why Falls Dominate the Injury Statistics
Falls affect every age group, every setting, and every activity level. A toddler tumbling down stairs, a construction worker slipping off scaffolding, a weekend jogger rolling an ankle, and an 80-year-old tripping on a rug all land in the same category. That breadth is what pushes the numbers so high. No other injury mechanism cuts across the entire population the way falls do.
The consequences range enormously. Most fall-related ER visits involve minor sprains, bruises, or cuts that heal on their own. But a significant share results in fractures, head injuries, or spinal damage that can change a person’s life permanently. About 10% of falls in older adults cause a fracture, and roughly 2% of those fractures involve the hip, which carries a long and difficult recovery.
The Other Leading Causes
After falls, the next most common nonfatal injuries follow a predictable pattern. “Struck by or against” injuries, the second leading cause at about 2.9 million ER visits in 2023, cover everything from walking into a door to being hit by a falling object at work. Motor vehicle occupant injuries rank third at roughly 2.3 million visits. Together, these top three categories represent the vast majority of injury-related emergency care in the country.
When you shift from nonfatal injuries to deaths, the picture changes. Poisonings, primarily from drug overdoses, are the leading cause of fatal home injuries, responsible for 43% of unintentional injury deaths in the home. Falls rank second for fatal home injuries at about 34%. Motor vehicle crashes and suicide also rank among the top causes of injury-related death overall, a reminder that the injuries most likely to send you to the ER are not always the ones most likely to kill you.
How Age Changes the Risk
For infants under one year old, suffocation is the leading cause of injury death at home, typically from soft bedding or sleep positioning. For children ages one through four, drowning takes over as the primary danger. Fire and burns become the top home injury killer for kids ages five through fourteen.
Falls become increasingly dangerous with age. Adults 60 and older face the highest rates of fatal fall injuries at home, and the risk climbs steeply from there. About 75% of all fractures, both spinal and elsewhere, occur in people 65 and older. Hip fractures are especially concentrated among those 75 and up, with more than three-quarters of all hip fractures affecting that age group. Roughly 20% of falls in older adults cause a serious injury like a fracture or head trauma, compared to a much smaller percentage in younger people who tend to recover more easily from the same type of fall.
Injuries at Work
Workplace injuries follow their own patterns but still overlap heavily with the general population data. In 2024, the overall incidence rate for nonfatal occupational injuries was 2.6 cases per 100 full-time workers. Of those, about 0.5 per 100 workers resulted in days away from work, while 1.1 per 100 involved job restrictions or transfers to different duties. Overexertion, falls, and contact with objects consistently rank among the top workplace injury mechanisms, mirroring the broader national trends.
Sports and Recreation Injuries
Sports injuries add millions more ER visits each year, particularly among young people. Concussions receive the most attention, and for good reason. Contact sports like football, basketball, and soccer account for 45% of all emergency visits for sports-related brain injuries and concussions in children 17 and under. Boys’ tackle football has the highest concussion rate per athletic exposure, followed by girls’ soccer and boys’ lacrosse.
The mechanisms vary by sport in telling ways. Tackling causes nearly two out of three concussions in high school football. In soccer, heading the ball is the most common trigger. In cheerleading, almost all concussions are linked to stunts involving tosses or lifts. In baseball, about one in four concussions comes from being hit by a pitch. Beyond concussions, sprains, strains, and fractures round out the most frequent sports injuries, with ankle and knee injuries being especially common across nearly every sport.
The Economic Cost
The total economic cost of injuries in the United States reached $4.2 trillion in 2019. That figure includes $327 billion in direct medical care, $69 billion in lost wages, and $3.8 trillion in quality-of-life losses and the statistical value of lives lost. Nonfatal injuries alone accounted for about $2 trillion of that total, with $323 billion going toward medical costs and $69 billion toward work loss. Fatal injuries made up the remaining $2.2 trillion, driven largely by the enormous economic value assigned to premature death.
To put it in perspective, the medical costs alone from nonfatal injuries, $323 billion in a single year, exceed the entire annual budget of many federal agencies. These costs fall on individuals, employers, insurers, and taxpayers, making injury prevention one of the highest-value public health investments available.
Reducing Your Risk at Home
Since falls are the clear frontrunner, the most impactful prevention steps target fall hazards. For older adults, that means removing loose rugs, improving lighting in hallways and stairwells, installing grab bars in bathrooms, and staying physically active to maintain balance and strength. For young children, stair gates and window guards address the most common household fall scenarios.
Other high-impact home safety measures include securing prescription medications to prevent accidental poisoning (drug overdoses account for the overwhelming majority of home poisoning deaths), maintaining working smoke alarms to reduce fire and burn fatalities, and supervising young children around water. Drowning can happen in as little as a few inches of water, which is why bathtubs, buckets, and backyard pools are persistent hazards for toddlers. Each of these interventions targets one of the top causes of home injury death and costs relatively little compared to the damage it prevents.