Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) and Appplications to Improve Traffic Safety Decision-Making

摘要

The Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) is a program facilitated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a component of its State Data Program. CODES uniquely uses probabilistic methodology to link crash records to injury outcome records collected at the scene and en route by emergency medical services, by hospital personnel after arrival at the emergency department or admission as an inpatient and/or, at the time of death, on the death certificate. CODES is designed to foster and cultivate crash-outcome data linkage for highway safety applications at the State level, supporting State Highway Safety Offices, State Public Health and Injury Prevention Departments, State Emergency Medical Services Agencies, State transportation departments, and other such agencies; and to facilitate participation in NHTSA-coordinated multistate studies using linked data at the Federal level. This document is intended to inform traffic safety professionals, from those in CODES programs to those in the agencies they support, as well as all others interested in traffic safety, on best-practice applications available through linked CODES data. To support CODES program objectives, NHTSA sponsors cooperative agreements that provide software access, technical assistance, and program assistance to CODES State programs to link information about State-reported crashes and their consequences, and to analyze and disseminate the information. Analyses of linked data help inform State traffic safety professionals and coalitions to determine and implement data-driven traffic safety priorities CODES evolved from a need to quantify and report on the benefits of safety equipment and legislation in terms of mortality, morbidity, injury severity, and health care costs, and has built proactive partnerships between the traffic safety and public health agencies, which own the State data, and NHTSA, which provides access to the software and training resources that make the linkage feasible. NHTSA maintains a CODES facilitating infrastructure to provide technical support and assistance to sites while also encouraging each site to build State-level collaborations and perform relevant analyses within their States.