PABI Plan - The Sarah Jane Brain Project

Figure 2: CDC figures for death and disability due to PTBI annually
Figure 3: CDC figures for TBI prevalence by age
The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted that PTBI is the NUMBER ONE cause of
morbidity and mortality for children and young adults. Children are 20 times more likely to die
from PTBI than from asthma and 38 times more likely to die than from cystic fibrosis.
Additionally, the WHO reported in 2008 that there were twice as many children who suffered a
brain injury than those who received stitches.
The financial burden of PTBI is estimated to cost well over $12 billion a year (2000 CDC data).
This figure does not include the significant financial impact of those children and young adults,
who because of their PTBI will never be able to contribute financially or otherwise to society as
adults, nor does it include lost productivity of the child/young adult’s parents and family. These
numbers also do not include those children who acquire their injuries from non-traumatic causes
such as stroke, brain tumors, infections of the brain and anoxic/hypoxic injuries.
While the economic cost of PA/TBI is clearly underestimated and growing every year, the
positive impact of enacting the National PABI Plan is clear. Since there is a huge decrease in
lifetime earnings and other outcomes such as educational achievement of children/young adults
with PA/TBI, any positive improvement in functioning and contributions to society has an
enormous compounding impact. In addition, since the SJBF Centers are focused on supporting
families as well as the child/young adults, the exponential increase in productivity of the
parents/caregivers over time as a result of that support is staggering. Since most parents become
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