A map created by digital health firm Amino shows which injuries are the “most disproportionately common” in each state. I broke my ankle last spring, and if I had lived in the state of Maine, that would have been considered a ‘VERY MAINE THING TO DO”.  We don’t know if arrests were made along with all those facial injuries you should expect to get in Illinois, but let’s continue with how these stats were created.

Methodology

There are over 3,000 ICD-9 codes related to physical injuries (broken bones, sprains, scrapes, cuts, bruises, etc.). We grouped these codes into about 170 sets and gave them common names. (Where applicable, we mapped ICD-10 codes to ICD-9 codes to keep our groupings consistent.)

Amino looked at every diagnosis in their health insurance claims database between 2012 and 2016 that included these code sets. The resulting data set includes 244,000,000 claims. Then, they computed the distribution of these cases nationally and in each state. They found some really wild stuff!

“Animal-drawn vehicle accident” diagnoses (which include riding on an animal) are disproportionately common in five states: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and Nebraska. Hello Cowboys and Cowgirls! Surprisingly, there were nearly 43,000 “animal-drawn vehicle accidents” in our national data from 2012 to 2016, but more than 1,000 occurred in Nebraska alone.

Three of the Four US Corners have a problem with suffocation while some of the northern states see a number of spine dislocations. I’ll take a broken ankle over those any day. “Unarmed fight or brawl” is disproportionately common in New York. There were 295,797 “unarmed fight or brawls” diagnoses in our national data, and 35,000 occurred in New York. That means New York accounts for more than 10% of medically documented fist fights in America.

Click HERE to see the full AMINO report.

Here is a list if you don’t enjoy maps:

Alaska Sprained knee
Alabama Unspecified chest injury
Arkansas Motor vehicle accident
Arizona Motor vehicle accident
California Motor vehicle accident
Colorado Suffocation
Connecticut Sprained back
Washington D.C. Unspecified facial injury
Delaware Rotator cuff sprain
Florida Unspecified head injury
Georgia Motor vehicle accident
Hawaii Scrape
Iowa Unspecified arm injury
Idaho Suffocation
Illinois Unspecified facial injury
Indiana Struck by object
Kansas Insect bite
Kentucky Fall
Louisiana Unspecified facial injury
Massachusetts Concussion
Maryland Sprained hand
Maine Broken ankle
Michigan Unspecified hand injury
Minnesota Spine dislocation
Missouri Animal bite
Mississippi Unspecified chest injury
Montana Sprained knee
North Carolina Insect bite
North Dakota Overexertion
Nebraska Overexertion
New Hampshire Sprained knee
New Jersey Sprained hand
New Mexico Suffocation
Nevada Suffocation
New York Unspecified knee injury
Ohio Sprained back
Oklahoma Rotator cuff sprain
Oregon Sprained back
Pennsylvania Unspecified chest injury
Rhode Island Sprained neck
South Carolina Unspecified chest injury
South Dakota Spine dislocation
Tennessee Motor vehicle accident
Texas Insect bite
Utah Suffocation
Virginia Insect bite
Vermont Spine dislocation
Washington Spine dislocation
Wisconsin Spine dislocation
West Virginia Unspecified back injury
Wyoming Suffocation