Slip and fall events range from minor household incidents to fatal injuries, but the available measures use different definitions. The statistics below separate reported falls, injury-related emergency visits, hospitalizations, deaths, workplace events, and bathtub incidents by population, period, and geography.
Key Slip and Fall Statistics
The most broadly useful figures include:
- In 2020, 14 million U.S. adults aged 65 and older reported at least one unintentional fall in the previous year.
- In 2020, 27.6% of U.S. adults aged 65 and older reported a fall in the previous year.
- In 2020, 28.9% of U.S. women aged 65 and older reported a fall.
- In 2020, 26.1% of U.S. men aged 65 and older reported a fall.
- CDC estimates about 4.5 million annual emergency-department visits from falls among U.S. adults aged 65 and older.
- CDC estimates about 1.4 million annual hospitalizations from falls among U.S. adults aged 65 and older.
- In 2023, the U.S. fall-death rate among adults aged 65 and older was 69.9 per 100,000.
- In 2023, the fall-death rate for U.S. men aged 65 and older was 74.2 per 100,000.
- In 2023, the fall-death rate for U.S. women aged 65 and older was 66.3 per 100,000.
- In 2023, adults aged 85 and older had fall-death rates of 373.3 per 100,000 for men and 319.7 for women.
- In 2023, Wisconsin’s older-adult fall-death rate was 158.4 per 100,000.
- In 2023, construction recorded 423 fatal falls, slips, and trips in the United States.
- In 2023, falls, slips, and trips caused 38.5% of construction workplace deaths.
- In 2015, 69.3% of U.S. community-dwelling older adults had at least one bathroom modification.
- A global systematic review estimated 26.5% pooled fall prevalence among older people.
Contents
- The overall burden among older adults
- Injury and emergency-department data by age and sex
- Death statistics, trends, and geographic differences
- Workplace slip, trip, and fall statistics
- Bathroom and home slip and fall statistics
- Outcomes, costs, and population-study evidence
Slip and Fall Statistics: The Overall Burden Among Older Adults
The CDC’s 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System estimate describes falls reported by noninstitutionalized U.S. adults aged 65 and older. It found 14 million people, or 27.6% of this population, reporting at least one unintentional fall during the prior year.
The estimate is self-reported and age-adjusted, so it measures people who reported a fall rather than all falls occurring in the population. The sex-specific rates were 28.9% for women and 26.1% for men.
The CDC also summarizes consequences using different denominators and care settings:
- One in 10 older-adult falls caused an injury that restricted activity for at least a day or prompted healthcare attention.
- About 4.5 million emergency-department visits occur annually from older-adult falls, including about 3.1 million visits that are treated and released.
- About 1.4 million of those estimated annual emergency visits result in hospitalization.
- Nearly 319,000 older people are hospitalized for hip fractures each year.
- Falls cause 83% of hip-fracture deaths and 88% of hip-fracture emergency-department visits and hospitalizations among older adults.
These figures are not interchangeable: a reported fall, a visit, a hospitalization, and a death count different events or outcomes. The survey and annual estimates are described by the CDC MMWR report and the CDC older-adult fall summary.
International context comes from a global systematic review. It included 104 articles and 1,741,613 participants and estimated pooled fall prevalence at 26.5%, with a 95% confidence interval of 23.4%–29.8%.
That pooled estimate came from a random-effects meta-analysis with extremely high heterogeneity, reported as I²=99.9%. It is therefore useful as broad context, not as a single current rate for every country; see the global systematic review and meta-analysis.
Slip and Fall Injury and Emergency-Department Data by Age and Sex
CDC/NCHS Health, United States data report initial injury-related emergency-department visits for 2017–2018. Rates are average annual initial visits per 10,000 people, and the classification context matters because the period follows the ICD-9 to ICD-10-CM transition.
| U.S. population, 2017–2018 | Men or boys | Women or girls |
|---|---|---|
| All ages | 280.4 | 340.2 |
| Ages 25–44 | 142.4 | 196.1 |
| Ages 45–64 | 195.6 | 292.1 |
| Ages 65+ | 531.2 | 741.0 |
| Under 18 | 439.0 boys | 316.9 girls |
The adult pattern shows higher initial fall-injury ED rates for women than men in each listed adult age group. Among children under 18, the reported rate was higher for boys than girls, making age and sex essential to interpretation rather than relying on an all-population figure.
The underlying source is Injury Visits in Health, United States. These are initial ED visits, not unique patients, and they should not be substituted for the self-reported annual fall prevalence above.
Slip and Fall Death Statistics, Trends, and Geographic Differences
National Vital Statistics System data coded unintentional falls as ICD-10 W00–W19. In 2023, the U.S. rate among adults aged 65 and older was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 population, with a rate of 74.2 for men and 66.3 for women.
Age within older adulthood strongly changed the measured rate:
| Age group, 2023 | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 65–74 | 24.7 | 14.2 |
| 75–84 | 89.6 | 62.8 |
| 85+ | 373.3 | 319.7 |
The CDC/NCHS 2023 fall-death report also provides a 2003–2023 time series. Men’s rates increased from 14.3 to 24.7 per 100,000 at ages 65–74, from 51.3 to 89.6 at ages 75–84, and from 178.3 to 373.3 at ages 85 and older.
For women, the corresponding increases were from 8.3 to 14.2, from 33.6 to 62.8, and from 128.5 to 319.7 per 100,000. These are observed time-series rates, not forecasts.
State comparisons also varied in 2023. Older-adult fall-death rates ranged from 29.5 per 100,000 in Alabama to 158.4 in Wisconsin, with the state of residence and differing population and reporting contexts affecting interpretation.
A separate 2021 CDC MMWR report counted 38,742 U.S. adults aged 65 and older who died from unintentional falls and described the result as approximately 100 deaths per day. Its age-adjusted state rates ranged from 30.7 per 100,000 in Alabama to 176.5 in Wisconsin, while the 2021 rate for women was 68.3 per 100,000; see the CDC MMWR report.
Workplace Slip, Trip, and Fall Statistics by Industry
Bureau of Labor Statistics workplace measures combine categories in ways that differ from household or bathroom statistics. In 2023, falls, slips, and trips caused 38.5% of construction workplace deaths, and construction accounted for 47.8% of all fatal falls, slips, and trips.
| Industry or sector, 2023 | Fatal falls, slips, and trips |
|---|---|
| Construction | 423 |
| Natural resources and mining | 45 |
| Educational and health services | 44 |
| Roofing contractors | 110 |
| Residential building construction | 62 |
| Plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors | 24 |
Roofing, residential construction, and plumbing-related counts are construction subsets, not additional totals to add to the overall construction count. The industry percentages and counts come from Fatal falls in the construction industry in 2023.
A separate BLS event classification recorded 140 fatal slip, trip, stumble, or same-level fall events across all fatal occupational injuries in 2023. Within that classification, 134 were fatal same-level falls, 35 were fatal same-level falls due to slip or trip, and 5 were fatal same-level slip, trip, or stumble events without a fall.
These event categories are narrower than the industry grouping and do not represent all fatal falls from height. The detailed figures are from BLS Table A-9.
Bathroom and Home Slip and Fall Statistics
Bathroom data require especially careful definitions. A historical Consumer Product Safety Commission report on bathtub and shower injuries found that children under 10 accounted for over 45% of bathtub accidents while representing less than 20% of the population, and children accounted for over 75% of bathtub-injury fatalities.
The same report estimated more than 70 bathtub-burn deaths and more than 100 bathtub-drowning deaths each year. Those are historical annual estimates and are not slip-and-fall counts; the report includes burns, drownings, and other bathtub injuries alongside falls.
See Bathtub and shower injuries Part 1.
A peer-reviewed analysis of the National Health and Aging Trends Study examined community-dwelling older adults from 2015 to 2017. At the 2015 baseline, 26.5% had clutter or tripping hazards in the home, while 69.3% had at least one bathroom modification.
Those environmental measures describe prevalence, not fall incidence or proof that modifications prevent falls. The study was observational and is summarized in Bathroom Modifications, Clutter, and Tripping Hazards.
Slip and Fall Outcomes, Costs, and Population-Study Evidence
The CDC estimated annual medical costs attributable to nonfatal and fatal falls among U.S. adults aged 65 and older at approximately $50 billion. The supplied CDC summary does not state a single cost year or costing method in the estimate itself, so the figure should be presented as an approximate annual estimate rather than a current price forecast.
Outcomes also differ in severity and measurement source. A self-reported fall can involve no healthcare contact, while an ED visit, hospitalization, hip-fracture outcome, or death is captured through a clinical or vital-statistics system with its own inclusion rules.
The evidence base therefore supports several complementary questions: how many older adults report falling, how often injuries reach emergency care, how death rates vary by age and state, which workplace categories are fatal, and how common bathroom or home hazards are. It does not support combining every figure into one total or treating historical bathtub injury estimates, workplace fatalities, and population fall prevalence as the same measure.