Literature assessing emergency care following trauma among people with disability (PWD) is limited. Prior research has typically assessed the impact of pre-existing disability on either specific trauma types or broader category of injury, often limiting analyses to specific disability populations. Such findings include older adults with disability having a 1.6–1.7 times higher risk for hip fracture than older adults without a disability,1,2 people with hearing impairments being 1.67 times more likely to have distal radius, hip, or spine fractures,3 and people with pre-existing disability being 1.3 to 4.5 times more likely to have unintentional, non-fatal injuries than people without disability.4

These studies demonstrate a possible connection between pre-existing disability conditions and trauma care differences; however, given specificities in the disability diagnosis and trauma conditions, these results are not generalizable to disability or trauma overall. One study examined the role of disability, using a broad definition by calculating a chronic disabling disease score (CDDS), on the outcomes of acute medical admission.5 Increased CDDS were independently associated with negative outcomes and poor prognosis, found mainly in patients with more severe biochemical markers of acute illness. In addition, an increased risk of mortality and length of stay (LOS) were seen as CDDS increased.5

This study seeks to test two definitions of pre-existing disability among adults assessed and treated for traumatic injuries captured in the 2016 National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB). Because the NTDB only records certain comorbidities, operational definitions of “disability” must be based on available diagnoses and represent a narrow and broad definition for comparison. Patient characteristics and injury details will be assessed across both disability groups, and it is hypothesized that characteristics of patients with pre-existing disability will differ from those of patients without pre-existing disability. The descriptive nature of this study is expected to expand current knowledge of an association between pre-existing disability and trauma and provide a platform for future work in this area.