What is the Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 1996?

The Traumatic Brain Injury Act has been reauthorized and updated four times since 1996

Before the Traumatic Brain Injury Act was passed, there was limited knowledge about the extent of death and long-term disabilities resulting from traumatic brain injuries.

The Traumatic Brain Injury Act was signed into law in 1996. Since that time, the Act has been reauthorized and updated every four years.

The Act, which seeks to reduce the incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI), requires the efforts of a number of federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Administration for Community Living (ACL).

Let’s take a closer look at the Act.

History of the Traumatic Brain Injury Act

On July 29, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 1996 into law.

Today, most Americans are at least somewhat familiar with traumatic brain injuries, but a lot less was known about them in 1996. At the time, the Act was the only federal legislation addressing TBI prevention, research, and funding.

The Act defined traumatic brain injury as:

“An acquired injury to the brain. Such term does not include brain dysfunction caused by congenital or degenerative disorders, nor birth trauma, but may include brain injuries caused by anoxia due to near drowning.”

The Act required, among other things, that the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research conduct a national consensus conference on the rehabilitation of persons with TBI. In addition, the Act authorized $3 million for each fiscal year from 1997 through 1999 for the CDC to carry out projects to reduce the incidence of TBI.

Since 1996, Congress has reauthorized the Act four times:

TBI Amendments of 2000 (P.L. 106-310)
Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 2008 (P.L. 111-36)
TBI Reauthorization Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-196)
TBI Program Reauthorization Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-377)

With each reauthorization, Congress has made a small handful of specific amendments to the Act.

Enjuris tip:Learn more about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a traumatic brain injury that has been discovered in football players, including former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, who hanged himself with a bedsheet in a Massachusetts prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd after suffering from the most severe CTE ever found in a person his age.

Why the Traumatic Brain Injury Act matters

The current version of the Act is the TBI Program Reauthorization Act of 2018.

The TBI Program Reauthorization Act of 2018 does a number of things to help Americans impacted by traumatic brain injuries. Most notably, the Act:

Requires the CDC to conduct research to identify effective strategies for preventing TBI.
Authorizes the CDC to collect and analyze data regarding the prevalence of concussions.
Implements public information and education programs for preventing TBI and for broadening public awareness about the public health consequences of TBI.
Creates systems of support for individuals with brain injuries and their families.
Modernizes how the federal government oversees TBI research, treatment options, and prevention measures.
Provides grants to Protection and Advocacy (P&A) programs to ensure that individuals with brain injuries and their families have access to information, referrals, and advice; individual and family advocacy; legal representation; and self-advocacy support.
Reauthorizes funding through 2024.

“[The Act] will help federal agencies, states, and local providers continue to conduct breakthrough research while providing support to service members on and off the battlefield, athletes on the ballfield, and patients and families across the country who are living with brain injuries,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell, co-founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.

Traumatic brain injury statistics

One of the things the Act does is allow the CDC to collect and analyze data in order to better understand:

How many people are affected by TBI
Who is most at risk
Whether programs to prevent TBI are working

The CDC’s findings are alarming. According to the CDC, approximately 1.5 million Americans sustain a TBI every year. As a cumulative result of past TBI, an estimated 5.3 million men, women, and children are currently living with a permanent TBI-related disability.

Based on the most recent data from the CDC:

176

About 176 Americans died from TBI-related injuries each day in 2020.

223,000

There were more than 223,000 TBI-related hospitalizations in 2019.

15%

About 15% of high-school students reported one or more sports-related concussions within the preceding 12 months in 2019.

Although there’s a tendency to focus on the people who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, there is a large number of family members who are tasked with caring for people living with a traumatic brain injury.

Studies show that these caregivers often experience feelings of burden, distress, anxiety, anger, and depression.

Enjuris tip:You can read more about the data the CDC has collected under the Traumatic Brain Injury Act in the CDC’s most recent surveillance reports.

The next renewal of the Traumatic Brain Injury Act will take place in the mid-2020s.

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