P3D251: Burn Injuries in Children from Hair Styling Tools Presenting to United States Emergency Departments, 2013-2022: Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep

Background: Electric hair styling tools are common household items, often employed for daily use by people of varying ages and gender. With temperatures reaching as high as 450ºF in a matter of minutes, hair styling tools have the potential to result in an unintentional burn injury for both the device user and surrounding bystanders. Prior studies investigating hair styling tool-related injuries have focused primarily on one electronic device – the curling iron – and have limited analyses on the mechanism of injury. The frequency of burn injuries from hair styling tools across the product spectrum is not well-defined. The purpose of our study is to address the literature gap and better characterize the epidemiology of burn injuries from hair styling tools that present to emergency departments (ED) in the United States from 2013-2022.

Methods: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database was queried using the hair styling tool-related product codes (1682-hair curlers and curling irons, 1602-hair dryers, 1662-hair grooming equipment and accessories, 1651- combs not specified, and 1637- electric combs) for ED visits in the United States. We evaluated the frequency of injuries in subjects ages 0-24 years from 2013-2022 whose injuries involved the aforementioned products, and the subject was diagnosed with a burn (diagnosis codes= 46-49 and 51). All reported values are population national estimates generated from actual hair styling tool-related injury encounters. These were calculated using the NEISS-supplied weights and variance variables. Rao-Scott Chi-square was used for all categorical comparisons.

Results: From 2013 to 2022, there were an estimated 30,839 (95% confidence interval (CI) 24,761 – 36,918) burn injuries from hair styling tools generated from 1,050 actual emergency department encounters captured (Table 1). Approximately 68% of the injured subjects were younger than 10 years of age (median age 4.3 years, interquartile range (IQR) 2.0-15.2 years). Persons were more likely to be female (65.1%). The majority of these injuries occurred within the home (72.3%). Of the burn injuries from hair styling tools, 98.6% had no escalation of care required. For the hair styling tool consumer products analyzed, the product code 1682—Hair Curlers, Curling Irons—accounted for 97.4% of the burn injuries reported (Table 2).

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that children have the greatest propensity to present to the emergency department with burn injuries sustained from hair styling tools, particularly from hair curlers and curling irons. The characteristics of the injury pattern described provides an opportunity for targeted anticipatory guidance to educate families regarding the hazard of electric hair styling tools. Specifically, parents should be counseled with regards to the appropriate ages for children to be able to use these tools independently and without supervision.