Urban trauma: a chronic recurrent disease.

Urban trauma, often presumed to be an acute episodic event, may actually be a chronic recurrent disease related to the lifestyle, environment, and other factors of its victims. To test this idea an attempt was made to obtain 5-year followup for 501 consecutive survivors of violent trauma seen at one hospital, 1980-1981. Followup information for these patients was obtained from medical records at four local Level I trauma centers, death certificates, Medical Examiner's records, and police crime computer files. Of the 501 patients, 263 had medical followup including 148 patients with one trauma and 115 patients with recurrent trauma. Of these 263 patients, 200 (76%) were unemployed and 164 (62%) abused alcohol or drugs. From 1982-1987 142 out of 263 patients were involved in 133 crimes and 52 died. These data suggest that urban trauma is a chronic disease with a recurrent rate of 44% and a 5-year mortality rate of 20%.