Questions and Answers About Workers’ Compensation Law For Injured Workers, July 1, 2004 – June 30, 2005

This brochure answers questions injured workers commonly ask about workers’ compensation. You may check Iowa Code chapters 85 through 87 and 17A, as well as Iowa Administrative Code chapter 876, for detailed information. References to Iowa Code sections and Iowa Administrative Rules appear in parentheses.

Questions and Answers About Workers’ Compensation Law For Injured Workers, July 1, 2001 – June 30, 2002

This brochure answers questions injured workers commonly ask about workers’ compensation. You may check Iowa Code chapters 85 through 87 and 17A, as well as Iowa Administrative Code chapter 876, for detailed information. References to Iowa Code sections and Iowa Administrative Rules appear in parentheses.

Questions and Answers About Workers’ Compensation Law For Injured Workers, July 1, 2002 – June 30, 2003

This brochure answers questions injured workers commonly ask about workers’ compensation. You may check Iowa Code chapters 85 through 87 and 17A, as well as Iowa Administrative Code chapter 876, for detailed information. References to Iowa Code sections and Iowa Administrative Rules appear in parentheses.

Iowa Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan, September 2006

In Iowa, hundreds of people die and thousands more are injured on our public roadways each year despite decades of efforts to end this su�ffering. Past safety e�efforts have resulted in Iowans bene�fiting from one of the best state roadway systems in the nation. Due to multi-agency e�efforts, Iowa has achieved 90 percent compliance with the state’s mandatory front seat belt use law, earned the nation’s second-lowest percent of alcohol involvement in fatal crashes and made safety gains in system-wide roadway design and operational improvements. Despite these ongoing e�efforts, the state’s annual average of 445 deaths and thousands of life-changing injuries is a tragic toll and an unacceptable public health epidemic in our state. To save more lives on our roadways, Iowans must be challenged to think �differently about lifesaving measures addressing young drivers, safety belts, and motorcycle helmet use and accept innovative designs such as roundabouts. Iowa must apply evidence-based strategies and create a safety culture that motivates all citizens to travel more responsibly. They must demand a lower level of tolerance for Iowa’s roadway deaths and injuries. The Iowa Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan (CHSP) engages diverse safety stakeholders and charts the course for this state, bringing to bear sound science and the power of shared community values to change the culture and achieve a standard of safer travel for our citizens. How many roadway deaths and injuries are too many? Iowa’s highway safety stakeholders believe that, “One death is one too many” and e�effective culture-changing policy and program strategies must be implemented to help reduce this death toll from an annual average of 445 to 400 by the year 2015.

Coming into Focus A Needs Assessment and State Plan for Iowans with Brain Injury, November 1998

Coming Into Focus presents a needs assessment related to Iowans with brain injury, and a state action plan to improve Iowa’s ability to meet those needs. Support for this project came from a grant from the Office of Maternal and Child Health to the Iowa Department of Public Health, Iowa’s lead agency for brain injury. The report is a description of the needs of people with brain injuries in Iowa, the status of services to meet those needs and a plan for improving Iowa’s system of supports. Brain injury can result from a skull fracture or penetration of the brain, a disease process such as tumor or infection, or a closed head injury, such as shaken baby syndrome. Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults (Fick, 1997). In the United States there are as many as 2 million brain injuries per year, with 300,000 severe enough to require hospitalization. Some 50,000 lives are lost every year to TBI. Eighty to 90 thousand people have moderate to acute brain injuries that result in disabling conditions which can last a lifetime. These conditions can include physical impairments, memory defects, limited concentration, communication deficits, emotional problems and deficits in social abilities. In addition to the personal pain and challenges to survivors and their families, the financial cost of brain injuries is enormous. With traumatic brain injuries, it is estimated that in 1995 Iowa hospitals charged some $38 million for acute care for injured persons. National estimates offer a lifetime cost of $4 million for one person with brain injury (Schootman and Harlan, 1997). With this estimate, new injuries in 1995 could eventually cost over $7 billion dollars. Dramatic improvements in medicine, and the development of emergency response systems, means that more people sustaining brain injuries are being saved. How can we insure that supports are available to this emerging population? We have called the report Coming into Focus, because, despite the prevalence and the personal and financial costs to society, brain injury is poorly understood. The Iowa Department of Public Health, the Iowa Advisory Council on Head Injuries State Plan Task Force, the Brain Injury Association of Iowa and the Iowa University Affiliated Program have worked together to begin answering this question. A great deal of good information already existed. This project brought this information together, gathered new information where it was needed, and carried out a process for identifying what needs to be done in Iowa, and what the priorities will be.

Traumatic Brain Injury in Iowa Inpatient Hospital Data, 2003-2005

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unintentional injury is the fifth leading cause of death for all age groups and the first leading cause of death for people from 1 to 44 years of age in the United States, while homicide remains the 2nd leading cause of death for 15 to 24 years old (CDC, 2006). In 2004, there were approximately 144,000 deaths due to unintentional injuries in the US; 53% of which represent people over 45 years of age (CDC, 2004). With 20,322 suicidal deaths and 13,170 homicidal deaths, intentional injury deaths affect mostly people under 45 years old. On average, there are 1,150 unintentional deaths per year in Iowa. In 2004, 37% of unintentional deaths were due to motor vehicle accidents (MTVCC) occurring across all age ranges and 30% were due to falls involving persons over 65 years of age 82% of the time (IDPH Health Stat Div., 2004). The most debilitating outcome of injury is traumatic brain injury, which is characterized by the irreversibility of its damages, long-term effects on quality of life, and healthcare costs. The latest data available from the CDC estimated that, nationally, 50,000 traumatic brain injured (TBI) people die each year; three times as many are hospitalized and more than twenty times as many are released from emergency room (ER) departments (CDC, 2006). Besides the TBI registry, brain injury data is also captured through three other data sources: 1) death certificates; 2) hospital inpatient data; and, 3) hospital outpatient data. The inpatient and outpatient hospital data are managed by the Iowa Hospital Association, which provides to Iowa Department of Public Health the hospital data without personal identifiers. (The hospitals send reports to the Agency of Health Care Research and Quality, which developed the Health Care Utilization Project and its product, the National Inpatient Sample).

Traumatic Brain Injury in Iowa: Iowa Brain Injury Resource Network Outcome Evaluation 2007-2009, August 2011

Termed the “silent epidemic,” traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the most debilitating outcome of injury, and is characterized by the irreversibility of its damages, long-term effects on quality of life and healthcare costs. The latest data available from the CDC estimate that nationally, 52,000 people die each year from TBI2. In Iowa, TBI is a major public health problem. The numbers and rates of hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits due to TBIs are steadily increasing. From 2006 to 2008, there were on average 545 injury deaths per year. Among the injured Iowans, TBI constituted nearly 30 percent (545) of all injury deaths, ten percent (1,591) of people hospitalized and seven percent (17,696) of ED visitors. 3 The state of Iowa has been supporting secondary prevention services to TBI survivors for several years. An Iowa organization that has made a significant effort in assisting TBI survivors is the Brain Injury Association of Iowa (BIAIA). The BIAIA administers the IBIRN program in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) through HRSA TBI Implementation grant funding and state appropriations.