The objective of this study is to do a trend analysis of product- related, hospital emergency room-treated data on injuries to the teeth, mouth and face, including an analysis of the frequencies of such injuries related to specific consumer products, on data compiled by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) maintained by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The NEISS database has separate data on injuries to the teeth, mouth and face. The injuries to the teeth form a subset of mouth injuries. During this reporting period the subset of injuries to teeth was updated to include data for 1986 and 1987, and the entire data set for the years 1979 through 1987 was analyzed. Findings showed that the projected national estimates of yearly dental injuries during this nine-year period ranged from 9,623 to 20,840. There was a slight but consistent trend in increase in dental injuries from 1979 through 1986. More males than females were injured each year in all age groups, except for those over 65 years of age, although their numbers were small. Children under 5 years accounted for 40.42 percent and those from 5 to 14 years of age accounted for 34.93 percent of the injuries. Thus, over 65 percent of the dental injuries were sustained by children below 15 years of age. The aggregated data showed the peak incidence of dental injuries during the month of May; with May, June and July showing the highest incidence. The most common products/activities associated with dental injuries were riding bicycles, falling down stairs or steps, baseball, hitting or falling from tables, desks, chairs or beds, basketball, football, and bathtubs/showers. These were followed by hard particles in the food causing injury to teeth, swings/swing sets, slides/sliding boards and skateboards.
