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NEISS, the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, is the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s sample-based record of injuries treated in hospital emergency departments (EDs) that are linked to consumer products. This guide is for researchers, analysts and students who need to know what the data can and cannot support before they download it: the sampling design, the boundary with the CDC’s all-injury data, the access routes, and the comparability caveat across years.
What is the NEISS?
The NEISS is a surveillance and follow-back system that collects data on consumer product-related injuries occurring in the United States. The CPSC uses it to produce nationwide estimates, and the data are also made available to researchers and the public (CPSC, NEISS Injury Data page, read 2026-11-07).
How do you spell NEISS?
N-E-I-S-S: National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. It is written in capitals in CPSC documents.
Who runs it and what it covers
What agency conducts surveillance on product-related injuries through the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System?
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) operates the NEISS, and has done so for more than 45 years according to its own data page. The CPSC site is the primary source for the data and documentation.
- Sample design. NEISS is a nationally representative probability sample of US hospitals. Each participating hospital reports every ED visit linked to a consumer product, and poisonings of children under 5.
- Size. About 100 hospitals, drawn from the 5,000-plus US hospitals that have EDs. The sample is stratified by hospital size and ordered by geography to minimise variance (CPSC NEISS FAQ, read 2026-11-07).
- Design history. First designed in 1978; expanded from 65 to 91 hospitals in 1991; about 100 hospitals in five strata (four ED-size strata plus one stratum of children’s hospitals) from 1997.
- All-injury expansion. In 2000 the CPSC expanded NEISS to collect all injuries for the CDC under an interagency agreement. The CPSC does not release data collected for other agencies, so the online data exclude those all-injury records.
How to get NEISS data
Where can I find the NEISS Coding Manual?
The CPSC links the NEISS Coding Manual as PDFs from its NEISS FAQ page: the 2025 NEISS Coding Manual (January 2025, Rev 1) and the earlier 2024 NEISS Coding Manual (January 2024). Use the edition that matches the data years you are analysing. The CPSC also links the NEISS Data Dictionary (an Excel workbook, file dated April 2022 in its name) as a variable and code reference. Questions about the data can go to the contact address listed on the CPSC FAQ page.
| Route | What the CPSC says it provides | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Access NEISS (online query) | Most recent 20 years of data; the latest year typically appears in April of the following year | You need quick counts or case records for a product, age group or year |
| Archived annual datasets | Excel, tab-delimited or SAS files, with brief incident narratives | You want to analyse cases in your own software or read the narratives |
| NEISS Data Highlights | Annual tables, published mid to late April, by product group, subgroup, age and sex | You need published national estimates without building them |
| NEISS Estimates Query Builder | Custom national estimates (instructions on the CPSC site) | You need weighted national estimates for a custom product, age or sex cut |
Start at the CPSC’s NEISS Injury Data page, which links all four routes. The page gives no required citation format, so cite the CPSC, the dataset or tool, the data year and your access date.
Strengths and limits
- Strength: probability sample. Because hospitals are sampled with a known design, the CPSC can produce nationwide estimates rather than just counts of reported cases.
- Strength: narratives. The annual datasets include brief incident narratives alongside coded fields, which helps when product codes are too coarse.
- Limit: association, not causation. The CPSC states that injuries are “associated with (but not necessarily caused by)” the products named.
- Limit: scope. Records come from ED visits; the online data cover consumer-product injuries and exclude the CDC all-injury records.
- Limit: comparing across years. A 2018 update took effect on 1 January 2019, adding, deleting, combining and splitting product codes. The CPSC advises care when comparing across that change, so map codes before building a time series.
Alternatives and related sources
| Source | Scope according to the CPSC FAQ |
|---|---|
| NEISS (CPSC online data) | Consumer product-related injuries, plus poisonings of children under 5, from the ED sample |
| All-injury NEISS data (NEISS-AIP) | Collected for the CDC and not released by the CPSC; for all-injury data the CPSC points to CDC WISQARS |
For other safety-surveillance records, see CASRAI’s guides to the MAUDE report, CDC WONDER underlying cause of death and CSTE. Product-level guides such as the choking rescue device overview cover the product side of injury hazards. If you are planning how to deposit or cite derived data, see the research data management hub.
FAQ
What is the NEISS?
The CPSC’s nationally representative sample of about 100 US hospital emergency departments, used to estimate consumer product-related injuries nationwide.
Is NEISS data the same as all US injuries?
No. Online NEISS data cover consumer product-related injuries; the all-injury records collected for the CDC are not released by the CPSC.
Can I compare NEISS product codes before and after 2019?
Only with care. The 2018 update, effective 1 January 2019, added, deleted, combined and split product codes.
What does the NEISS database not tell me?
It does not establish that a product caused an injury, only that the injury was associated with it.
Sources
- U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, NEISS Injury Data, read 2026-11-07.
- U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, NEISS Frequently Asked Questions, read 2026-11-07.
