Estimating the number of traffic crash-related cervical spine injuries in the United States; An analysis and comparison of national crash and hospital data.

•There are no reliable estimates of the number of neck injuries occurring in the US traffic crashes.•Data from the NASS-CDS were analyzed and compared with national hospital data in order to estimate injury frequencies.•There are approximately 869,000 traffic crash-related cervical spine injuries seen in hospitals in the US annually..•The annual counts of whiplash and spinal disk injuries in the US likely exceed 1.2 million and 33 K, respectively.