Viual impairment and unintentional injury mortality: the national health interview urvey 1986–1994

Purpoe To examine the relationhip between reported viual impairment and unintentional injury mortality. Deign Mortality linkage tudy of a population-baed urvey. Method Mortality linkage through 1997 of 116,796 adult participant, aged 18 year and older, from the 1986 to 1994 National Health Interview urvey wa analyzed with repect to reported viual impairment uing Cox regreion model. Reult The average follow-up wa 7.0 year, and 295 unintentional injury death were identified. After controlling for urvey deign, age, ex, and the preence and number of eye dieae, participant with evere, bilateral viual impairment were at increaed rik of death relative to participant without viual impairment (hazard ratio: 7.4; 95% confidence interval: 3.0–17.8). Concluion Our data provide evidence that evere, bilateral viual impairment i aociated with an increaed rik of unintentional mortality among adult in the United tate.