Methodology

Injury estimates

All injury figures come from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), run by the CPSC. NEISS is a probability sample of about 100 US hospital emergency departments. Each case carries a statistical weight, and the sum of the weights gives a national estimate.

We downloaded the public NEISS files for 2016–2025. For each tool page we add up the weights of every case in which one of that tool’s product codes appears in any of the three product fields, counting each case once. The product codes for each tool are listed on its page.

Breakdowns by injury type, body part, age, sex and disposition use the last five years combined, to give stable shares. “Admitted” means the patient was admitted to hospital or transferred to another hospital (NEISS disposition codes 2 and 4).

Reliability

CPSC treats an estimate as potentially unreliable if it is under 1,200, is based on fewer than 20 sampled cases, or has a coefficient of variation above 33%. We flag estimates that fail the first two tests. We do not compute the coefficient of variation, so treat small year-to-year changes with caution. Tool types with fewer than 20 cases a year on average have no page of their own.

NEISS counts emergency room visits only. It does not count injuries treated elsewhere or injuries at work (some of which are included when they happen with consumer products). It also does not measure how many people use each tool, so these are counts, not risk rates.

Case narratives

The short case descriptions are NEISS narratives from the most recent two years. We expand common medical abbreviations and change the text to sentence case. NEISS removes names, and brand names appear as [brand].

Recalls

Recall data comes from the CPSC recalls database (saferproducts.gov API), 286 recalls since 2010 matched to tool types by keyword. Brands are matched from the recall title and product names. Some recalls may be missed or mismatched. Always check cpsc.gov/Recalls and the maker’s site.

Calculators

Each calculator page shows its formula and source. Results are estimates and do not replace the tool manual, the product label or professional advice.

Data licence

NEISS data and CPSC recall notices are US government works in the public domain. Our compiled table is free to reuse with a link: toolrates-injuries.csv.