Abstract
Background
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an insidious gas responsible for approximately 21,000 emergency
department visits, 2300 hospitalizations, and 500 deaths in the United States annually.
We analyzed 10 combined years of data from two Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry acute hazardous substance release surveillance programs to evaluate CO incident-related
injuries.
Methods
Seventeen states participated in these programs during 2005–2014.
Results
In those 10 years, the states identified 1795 CO incidents. Our analysis focused on 897 CO incidents
having injured persons. Of the 3414 CO injured people, 61.0% were classified as general
public, 27.7% were employees, 7.6% were students, and 2.2% were first responders.
More than 78% of CO injured people required hospital or pre-hospital treatment and
4.3% died. The location for most injured people (39.9%) were homes or apartments,
followed by educational facilities (10.0%). Educational services had a high number
of people injured per incident (16.3%). The three most common sources of CO were heating,
ventilation, and air conditioning systems; generators; and motor vehicles. Equipment
failure was the primary contributing factor for most CO incidents.
Conclusions
States have used the data to evaluate trends in CO poisoning and develop targeted
public health outreach. Surveillance data are useful for setting new policies or supporting
existing policy such as making CO poisoning a reportable condition at the state level
and requiring CO alarms in all schools and housing. Public health needs to remain
vigilant to the sources and causes of CO to help reduce this injury and death.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: February 13, 2018
Accepted:
February 11,
2018
Received in revised form:
February 10,
2018
Received:
November 16,
2017
Footnotes
☆The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc.
