Ocular Trauma Epidemiology

Over 2.4 million eye injuries are said to occur yearly in the United States, with eye trauma the third most common ophthalmic indication for hospitalization.1Despite the apparent enormity of the ocular trauma problem, educational and preventive efforts have been hampered by a lack of understanding of this epidemic. In the United States only four population-based studies of eye injuries have been published,2-5three of them in the last three years. It is of importance, then, that a fifth population-based report by Tielsch et al6appears in this issue of theArchives. See also p 519. Just a few years ago ophthalmologists dealing with ocular trauma had no epidemiologic information to aid prevention and treatment efforts. The dilemma has now changed from a lack of epidemiologic data to uncertainty over how to reconcile the various studies into a coherent description of the ocular trauma epidemic. It is