Bathroom injuries and older-adult falls in Central Ohio, by the numbers

Most bathroom injuries are falls, and most happen in or around the tub or shower. This page sets out what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Ohio Department of Health publish on bathroom injuries, falls among older adults and fall deaths, down to the seven Central Ohio counties, with each figure's year and exactly what it counts.

Last updated September 2026 · Figures are the CDC's, the Consumer Product Safety Commission's and the Ohio Department of Health's, each read September 24, 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base

What these numbers count, and what they do not

Four kinds of count appear on this page, and they are not interchangeable. National emergency room figures come from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a national sample of hospital emergency departments run by the Consumer Product Safety Commission; it produces national estimates and publishes nothing for Ohio or any county. The Ohio Department of Health's statewide counts of emergency department visits and hospital stays for falls are its own and do not come from that sample. Deaths come from death certificates, counted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the nation and each state, and by the Ohio Department of Health for the state and each county. Survey answers come from people asked whether they fell in the past year. And a rate is either crude, per 100,000 people of that age, or age-adjusted, reweighted to a standard population so that places with older residents can be compared fairly. The bathroom injury and tub and shower rates are crude; the fall death rates are age-adjusted. No agency found for this page publishes bathroom injuries for Ohio or any Central Ohio county.

Where in the bathroom people are hurt

The most recent federal study found for this page that counted every kind of bathroom injury, not only those tied to one product, is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's report on 2008, published in 2011. It estimated 234,094 emergency room visits for bathroom injuries among people 15 and older in the United States, a rate of 96.4 per 100,000. Falls caused 81.1 percent of them. Women were hurt at a higher rate than men, 121.2 against 70.4 per 100,000.

The contrast between the two tub lines is the study's own point: 9.8 percent of bathroom injuries happened while getting out of the tub or shower, and 2.2 percent while getting in. The report calls bathing, showering and getting out of the tub or shower the most hazardous bathroom activities, and singles out getting out of the tub or shower and getting on and off the toilet as the ones people should be taught about. It says grab bars inside and outside the tub or shower and next to the toilet, with non-slip strips, might reduce injuries, and that more research is needed on how well grab bars work.

The rate climbs steeply with age. Among people 15 to 24, most bathroom injuries, 84.5 percent, happened in or around the tub or shower; among people 85 and older that share fell to 38.9 percent, as injuries at the toilet rose.

Bathroom fixtures and emergency rooms at every age, 2024

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's summary of its 2024 emergency room sample carries a row for bathroom structures and fixtures: tubs and showers with their fittings, toilets, sinks, faucets, towel bars and enclosures. It estimates that 658,680 people of all ages were treated in U.S. emergency rooms in 2024 for injuries involving them, about 196 for every 100,000 residents, with a coefficient of variation of 8 percent. Among the Commission's product groups, only stairs and floors, beds, and chairs and sofas sent more people of all ages to an emergency room that year. About one in four of these visits, 161,804, ended in a hospital admission or worse, and children under 5 accounted for 33,190, a rate close to the all-ages one. The count is of injuries associated with the products, not necessarily caused by them, and grab bars, tub mats and built-in shower benches are coded together with the tub or shower, so the sample cannot say how many injuries involved a grab bar. No year-to-year change is given here, because the summary tests none.

Older adults and the tub or shower, 2022 and 2023

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's 2024 report on older adults counts falls involving bathtubs and showers directly, averaged over 2022 and 2023. It estimates 104,900 emergency room visits a year among adults 65 and older, and a third of them ended in a hospital admission. Its figures for falls involving toilets are close behind, 97,600 a year among adults 65 and older. The report, prepared by Commission staff, says its figures are not directly comparable with earlier Commission reports, so the page does not set them against older editions.

How often older Ohioans fall

In a 2020 federal health survey, 28.5 percent of Ohioans 65 and older said they had fallen at least once in the past year, a figure the CDC reports as not significantly different from the national 27.6 percent. In the same survey, 10.5 percent of older Ohioans reported a fall that injured them badly enough to limit their activity for a day or to see a doctor. The Ohio Department of Health counted nearly 78,000 emergency department visits and more than 18,000 hospital stays for falls among Ohioans 65 and older in 2021.

Fall deaths: Ohio and the country

The CDC's age-adjusted death rate from falls among adults 65 and older has run above the national rate in Ohio in every year it prints both. In 2024 Ohio's rate was 97.2 per 100,000, against 78.4 nationally. The CDC prints the national rate on its page for 2018 and 2024; the 2021 national figure is from its 2023 weekly report, which put Ohio at 88.4 and found that significantly higher than the nation's; the table's 88.5 for 2021 is the figure on the agency's state map, and the page prints each as its source gives it.

Fall deaths in the seven Central Ohio counties

The Ohio Department of Health publishes older-adult fall deaths by county of residence each year. Its figures differ slightly from the CDC's for the same years, 1,914 Ohio deaths in 2023 against the CDC's 1,926, and neither agency's publication reconciles the two, so each is given under its own name. The department withholds a county's single-year rate when it rests on fewer than 10 deaths. Six of the seven counties had a 2020 to 2023 average rate above Ohio's 90.3; only Madison was below. Together the seven counties recorded 203 deaths in 2019 and 378 in 2023, a sum made here from the department's county rows.

Rates on small counts swing hard. Madison County's 2023 rate of 143.6 rests on exactly 10 deaths, the smallest number for which the department prints a rate. Larger counties move too: Franklin County's deaths rose from 161 in 2022 to 240 in 2023. The department also revises its own past rates as population estimates change, so a rate is quoted here with the report that printed it, the department's 2023 report.

Where the fatal fall began is in the same report. Among Ohioans 65 and older who died from falls in 2023, the injury happened at home for 52 percent of women and 56 percent of men, and in a nursing home or similar residence for 27 percent of women and 18 percent of men.

Hot water

The Consumer Product Safety Commission urges setting water heaters to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and says the elderly and children under five are hurt most by tap water scalds. Its figures for how long it takes water to cause third-degree burns in most adults are set out in the table below. It estimates 6,400 emergency room visits a year for scald burns among adults 65 and older, averaged over 2022 and 2023. The trade-off between a 120 degree setting and the hotter storage temperatures some health guidance calls for is on the page on hot water for a Central Ohio shower, and the plumbing code's 120 degree limit on a shower valve's setting is on the page on Ohio's plumbing code.

What the agencies publish about the bathroom itself

The CDC's home safety checklist asks for a non-slip rubber mat or self-stick strips on the tub or shower floor, and grab bars next to and inside the tub and next to the toilet. Ohio's statewide falls prevention program, STEADY U Ohio, run by the Ohio Department of Aging, builds its advice on home, health and habits, and its home tips include grab bars in the bathroom. The voluntary standard for slip resistance of bathtub and shower surfaces, ASTM F462, was withdrawn in 2016, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission lists re-establishing it or developing a new one as its goal; a study the Commission funded, published in 2023, found stepping into and out of a tub or shower a significant slip and fall risk, especially for older adults. How grab bars and seats are built and mounted is on the page on grab bars and shower seats.

Two figures that circulate widely are not used here. An Ohio agency page says almost 80 percent of falls at home happen in the bathroom, without a source; the CDC's study says instead that about 80 percent of bathroom injuries were falls. The same page attributes to the CDC more than 200,000 seniors a year treated for bathroom injuries; the CDC's figure of 234,094 covers everyone 15 and older, and its rows for people 65 and older add up to 83,426.

Sources

Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Stevens, Haas and Haileyesus, Nonfatal Bathroom Injuries Among Persons Aged 15 Years or Older, United States, 2008, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 60(22), June 10, 2011; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, NEISS Data Highlights, Calendar Year 2024, Home Furnishings and Fixtures, row Bathroom Structures and Fixtures, and the NEISS Coding Manual, January 2025; read September 25, 2026.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Senior Injuries and Deaths Associated with Consumer Products: 2024 Report, January 2025, Tables 14 to 22 and Tables 3 and 4; read September 24, 2026.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Older Adult Falls Data, updated September 4, 2026, and its state map data; read September 24, 2026.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kakara and others, Nonfatal and Fatal Falls Among Adults Aged 65 Years or Older, United States, 2020 to 2021, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 72(35), 2023, Tables 1 and 2; read September 24, 2026.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alzheimer's Disease and Healthy Aging Data, fall with injury among adults 65 and older, Ohio and the United States, 2020; read September 24, 2026.
• Ohio Department of Health, 2023 Ohio Unintentional Fall Deaths Among Older Adults and the 2022 edition, Tables 1 and 2, listed on the department's injury data page; read September 24, 2026.
• Ohio Department of Health, Falls Among Older Adults, 2021 figures; read September 24, 2026.
• Ohio Department of Aging, STEADY U Ohio, and Falls Prevention at Home, December 16, 2021; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Avoiding Tap Water Scalds, publication 5098; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Bath Tubs (Adult) voluntary standards summary, and Bathing Surfaces Slip Study, Task 3 report, July 2023; read September 24, 2026.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Check for Safety, 2017; read September 24, 2026.

Common questions