This resource compiles Michigan’s published traumatic brain injury statistics alongside the national figures, with the source, reporting year, and measurement method attached to every number. It is written for journalists, researchers, clinicians, and families who need citable figures rather than a summary.
One distinction governs everything below. Michigan publishes TBI mortality data, meaning deaths where a brain injury was recorded as a related cause, and it publishes a 25-year series. Michigan does not publish a comparable state series for TBI emergency department visits or hospitalizations, which is where the large majority of brain injuries actually appear.
Anyone reporting on Michigan brain injury numbers needs to know which of those two things they are describing. Confusing mortality with incidence understates the burden by a factor of well over a hundred.
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How Many People Die of Brain Injuries in Michigan Each Year?
Michigan recorded 1,886 TBI-related deaths in 2024, an age-adjusted rate of 16.2 per 100,000 residents. That figure comes from the Michigan Death Files maintained by the Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The state breaks those deaths down by the external cause that produced them. Three mechanisms account for roughly 85 percent of the total.
Michigan TBI-related deaths, 2024
| Category | Number | Age-adjusted rate per 100,000 | Share of TBI deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| All TBI-related deaths | 1,886 | 16.2 | 100% |
| Accidental falls and TBI | 746 | 5.6 | 39.6% |
| Suicides and TBI | 667 | 6.2 | 35.4% |
| Transport accidents and TBI | 189 | 1.8 | 10.0% |
| All other external causes | 284 | Not published separately | 15.1% |
Source: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics, 2000 to 2024 Michigan Death Files. The other-causes row is calculated by subtraction from the published totals.
How Michigan Defines a TBI Death
The definition is narrower than most readers assume, and it changes what the numbers mean. Michigan counts a death as TBI-related where the underlying cause was external, meaning accident, homicide, suicide, or other external injury, and a traumatic brain injury was mentioned as a related cause of death.
The state applies a specific set of ICD-10 codes to identify those mentions: S01, S02.0, S02.1, S02.3, S02.7 through S02.9, S04.0, S06, S07.0, S07.1, S07.8, S07.9, S09.7 through S09.9, and T90.
Two consequences follow. A death from natural causes in a person with a long-standing brain injury does not appear, and a brain injury that contributed to death without being recorded on the certificate does not appear either.
Rates are age-adjusted by the direct method using the year 2000 United States population as the standard, with published 95 percent confidence intervals. That adjustment is what makes comparison across years legitimate.
What Has Changed in Michigan Over 25 Years?
The headline finding is that the overall count has risen while the mechanism mix has inverted. Falls have displaced motor vehicle crashes as the dominant cause of fatal brain injury in Michigan.
Michigan TBI-related deaths
| Category | 2000 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total deaths | 1,495 | 1,886 | +26.2% |
| Age-adjusted rate | 15.2 | 16.2 | +6.6% |
| Accidental falls | 225 | 746 | +231% |
| Suicides | 418 | 667 | +59.6% |
| Transport accidents | 451 | 189 | -58.1% |
The gap between the increase in counts and the increase in rate is the most analytically important number in the table. Total deaths rose 26.2 percent while the age-adjusted rate rose only 6.6 percent, which means most of the increase reflects Michigan’s aging population rather than a rising risk to any given resident.
Falls Are Now the Leading Mechanism
Fall-related TBI deaths more than tripled in count between 2000 and 2024, from 225 to 746, with the age-adjusted rate rising from 2.3 to 5.6 per 100,000. That rate increase of roughly 143 percent cannot be explained by population aging alone.
Falls overtook suicides as the single largest mechanism in 2021, when fall deaths reached 704 against 698 suicides, and again in 2024 at 746 against 667. In the intervening years, the two ran close enough that the ranking flipped back and forth.
This mirrors the national picture. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that falls produce the greatest number of TBI-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and that people age 75 and older have the highest rates.
Transport-Related Brain Injury Deaths Have Fallen Sharply
This is the clearest safety-improvement signal in the Michigan series. Transport-accident TBI deaths dropped from 451 in 2000 to 189 in 2024, with the age-adjusted rate falling from 4.5 to 1.8 per 100,000, a decline of roughly 60 percent.
The trend was not linear. Deaths fell steadily through the 2000s, reached a low of 187 in 2015, and have since held in a band between roughly 190 and 245.
Vehicle safety engineering is the most plausible driver, given the period involved. Anyone attributing the decline to a specific intervention should note that this dataset does not identify causes of the trend, only the trend itself.
The Suicide Component Deserves Careful Handling
Suicides accounted for 667 TBI-related deaths in Michigan in 2024, at an age-adjusted rate of 6.2 per 100,000. The count rose from 418 in 2000 and peaked at 707 in 2023.
This category reflects method rather than a brain injury that preceded and contributed to the death. It counts deaths by suicide in which a traumatic brain injury was recorded as a related cause.
Reporting that conflates this with brain-injury-related suicide risk is describing something the data does not measure. The relationship between prior TBI and later suicide is a separate research question addressed in the CDC’s published literature.
The Michigan Series Year by Year
Michigan publishes an unbroken annual series from 2000 through 2024, which is unusual among states and makes the dataset genuinely useful for trend work. Selected years below show the shape of the change.
| Year | Total TBI deaths | Rate | Falls | Suicides | Transport |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 1,495 | 15.2 | 225 | 418 | 451 |
| 2005 | 1,482 | 14.6 | 364 | 457 | 387 |
| 2010 | 1,466 | 14.0 | 431 | 507 | 270 |
| 2015 | 1,545 | 14.3 | 410 | 581 | 187 |
| 2020 | 1,865 | 16.8 | 648 | 651 | 206 |
| 2021 | 2,003 | 18.0 | 704 | 698 | 228 |
| 2022 | 1,923 | 17.2 | 702 | 704 | 196 |
| 2023 | 1,854 | 16.4 | 682 | 707 | 195 |
| 2024 | 1,886 | 16.2 | 746 | 667 | 189 |
Rates are age-adjusted per 100,000 using the year 2000 United States standard population. The full series for every year from 2000 through 2024, with confidence intervals, is published by MDHHS.
2021 Is the Peak, and 2024 Sits Below It
Michigan TBI deaths peaked in 2021 at 2,003, the only year in the series above 2,000, at an age-adjusted rate of 18.0 per 100,000. The three years since have run lower, at 1,923, 1,854, and 1,886.
The rate has declined more consistently than the count across that period, from 18.0 to 16.2. Anyone characterizing the current direction should describe it as a plateau below the 2021 peak rather than as either a sustained decline or a continuing rise.
How Do Michigan’s Numbers Compare Nationally?
Michigan’s TBI death rate sits in the middle-to-upper part of the range CDC has measured across states, though the comparison requires a decade-wide year gap to be stated openly.
CDC’s state-level analysis found TBI-related death rates ranging from 9.1 to 23.0 per 100,000 across participating states in 2014. Michigan’s 2024 age-adjusted rate was 16.2 per 100,000.
Those figures are not directly comparable because they cover different years and the CDC’s analysis used its own case definition. The honest framing is that Michigan’s rate is not an outlier in either direction against the spread CDC observed.
Why Mortality Data Understates the Brain Injury Burden
Deaths are a small fraction of brain injuries, and Michigan’s 1,886 figure should never be presented as an incidence count. National surveillance illustrates the scale difference.
CDC reports more than 586 TBI-related hospitalizations and 190 TBI-related deaths per day nationally, and states explicitly that those estimates exclude the many TBIs treated only in an emergency department, in primary care, in urgent care, or not treated at all.
Roughly 75 percent of traumatic brain injuries are classified as mild, which is the category least likely to appear in any surveillance system. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke notes that mild TBI includes concussion and that symptoms persisting for weeks or longer are described as post-concussion syndrome.
CDC’s state-level analysis for 2014 found TBI-related emergency department visit rates ranging from 381.1 to 998.4 per 100,000 across participating states, against death rates of 9.1 to 23.0 per 100,000. Emergency visits outnumbered deaths by roughly 40 to one, even before counting injuries never seen in an ED.
How Does Michigan Crash Data Fit With the TBI Numbers?
The two datasets measure different things and can be read together with care. Michigan crash reporting captures injury severity as assessed at the scene, while the TBI series captures a diagnosis recorded on a death certificate.
Michigan recorded 1,099 traffic deaths and 5,781 suspected serious injuries in 288,880 crashes during 2024, per Michigan Traffic Crash Facts. The state’s TBI series recorded 189 transport-accident TBI deaths in the same year.
Comparing those directly requires two caveats. The ICD-10 transport-accident category is broader than motor vehicle traffic crashes, and crash reporting counts deaths differently from vital records, so the 189 figure is not a clean subset of the 1,099.
What the comparison does support is a directional statement: brain injury is recorded in a substantial minority of Michigan traffic deaths, and crash reporting has no field that identifies brain injury at all. A person with a serious TBI and a person with a serious pelvic fracture both appear as one suspected serious injury.
The Groups Most Exposed in Crash Data
Michigan crash data does identify road user categories where head injury risk is structurally higher, even though it does not code the injury type.
Motorcyclists. 168 killed and 2,460 injured in 3,187 crashes in 2024, at a death rate of 22.4 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled against an overall 1.1. Among the 168 deaths, 90 were helmeted, 64 were not, and helmet use was unknown for 14.
Pedestrians. 156 killed and 1,809 injured out of 2,281 involved in crashes, with 441 suspected serious injuries.
Bicyclists. 29 killed and 1,369 injured out of 1,790 involved, with 196 suspected serious injuries.
CDC identifies bicycle helmets as the single most effective countermeasure available to cyclists for reducing head injuries and fatalities. Michigan’s most recent statewide motorcycle helmet observation survey, conducted in 2017, estimated helmet use at 71.4 percent.
What This Data Cannot Tell You
Four limits should accompany any use of these figures, and stating them makes a citation stronger rather than weaker.
- No Michigan incidence series. The state publishes TBI deaths, not emergency department visits or hospitalizations, so there is no Michigan equivalent to the CDC’s national incidence estimates.
- Death certificate dependence. A brain injury must be recorded on the certificate to be counted, which introduces variation in documentation practice across time and place.
- No severity or outcome detail. The data says nothing about survivors, who represent the vast majority of people affected by brain injury and all of the long-term care burden.
- No causal attribution. The series identifies trends without explaining them, so any claim about why falls rose or transport deaths declined goes beyond what the dataset supports.
The third limit is the one that matters most for understanding the real burden. A person who survives a severe brain injury may need decades of care, and no Michigan dataset counts them.
If a brain injury has affected your family and you are trying to understand what comes next, rather than what the statistics say, our Michigan brain injury attorneys can walk through it with you at (248) 900-9000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Michigan recorded 1,886 TBI-related deaths in 2024, at an age-adjusted rate of 16.2 per 100,000 residents. The figure counts deaths from an external cause where a traumatic brain injury was recorded as a related cause on the death certificate.
Accidental falls, which accounted for 746 TBI-related deaths in 2024, or 39.6 percent of the total. Falls overtook suicides as the largest single mechanism in 2021 and again in 2024, having been well behind both suicides and transport accidents in 2000.
The count rose 26.2 percent between 2000 and 2024, from 1,495 to 1,886, but the age-adjusted rate rose only 6.6 percent over the same period. That gap indicates most of the increase reflects an aging population rather than rising individual risk.
Transport-accident TBI deaths totaled 189 in 2024, down from 451 in 2000. Michigan crash reporting does not identify brain injury as an injury type, so there is no state figure for non-fatal crash-related TBIs.
Not as a comparable public series. Michigan’s published TBI data covers deaths through the state’s vital records system, so national CDC estimates are the available reference point for emergency department visits and hospitalizations.
Roughly 75 percent of traumatic brain injuries are mild, and CDC notes its own estimates exclude TBIs treated only in an emergency department, urgent care, or primary care, or never treated. Mortality data captures the smallest and most severe slice.
Yes, and citing the primary sources directly is preferable. Michigan mortality figures come from the MDHHS Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics, crash figures from Michigan Traffic Crash Facts, and national figures from the CDC and NINDS, all linked above with reporting years stated.
Talk With a Michigan Brain Injury Attorney
Statistics describe populations. They do not describe what a brain injury has done to one person’s memory, work, or family, and they do not capture survivors at all.
Christensen Law is a Michigan trial firm with offices in Southfield, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, and Troy. We handle brain injury and catastrophic injury cases across the state.
Call (248) 900-9000 or reach us through our contact page. Related reading includes our discussions of how a TBI is diagnosed and treated, and the symptoms and tests that follow a crash.
