Six percent of U.S. adults had activity-limiting injury in 2020 to 2021

In 2020 to 2021, about 6 percent of U.S. adults had an activity-limiting injury in the past three months, according to a July data brief published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics.

Amy E. Cha, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Xun Wang, from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, used data from the 2020 and 2021 National Health Interview Surveys to describe the percentage of adults who had an injury that limited their usual activities in the past three months (an activity-limiting injury).

The researchers found that about 6 percent of U.S. adults had an activity-limiting injury in the past three months in 2020 to 2021. The likelihood of having an activity-limiting injury was highest for White non-Hispanic adults, followed by Black non-Hispanic, Hispanic, and Asian non-Hispanic adults (6.6, 4.9, 4.6, and 3.2 percent, respectively).

A higher percentage of adults with some college and a college degree or higher had an activity-limiting injury in the past three months than adults with less than a high school diploma or GED (6.1 and 6.3 percent, respectively, versus 5.1 percent). There was variation observed in the percentage of adults who had an activity-limiting injury in the past three months by region and urbanization level.

"In 2020 to 2021, 5.9 percent of all adults had an injury that limited their usual activities for at least 24 hours," the authors write. "No statistically significant differences were observed in the percentage of adults with an activity-limiting injury by sex, age, and family income."