North Carolina Poisoning Statistics

2008 Carolinas Poison Center Statistics 

• In 2008, the Carolinas Poison Center answered 126,780 calls from the public and healthcare providers of North Carolina.
• 78% of the callers were managed at a non-healthcare facility (home, workplace, school, etc.).
• Carolinas Poison Center answered nearly 17,000 calls from healthcare providers, assisting with the diagnosis, management, and treatment of poisoned patients.
• In 2008, over 30,300 calls from North Carolina residents involved pain medicines (analgesics), making pain medicines the most called about class of toxins. 
  

For more detailed National poisoning statistics, click here to view the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) 2008 Annual Report.

• In 2004, poisonings surpassed firearms accidents to become the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths in the U.S. (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5824a6.htm)
• In 2006, unintentional poisonings were the leading cause of unintentional injury death for adults 35-54.  Click here to see the CDC's findings. 
• In the United States, a poison center answers a call about a suspected or actual poisoning exposure every 8 seconds.
• In 2008, U.S. poison centers received nearly 2.5 million human poison exposure calls, 1.7 million poison information calls, and over 130,000 non-human exposure calls. 
• Although children under the age of 6 were involved in the majority of poisoning exposures in 2008, they comprised only 2% of poisoning fatalities.
• Cosmetics and personal care products were the most frequently involved substances in pediatric (5 years old and younger) poisoning exposures in 2008. 
• Prescription and non-prescription pain medicines (analgesics) were the most frequently involved substances in poisoning exposures for callers of all ages in 2008.