Injury characteristics and their association with clinical complications among emergency care patients in Tanzania

•Our patient sample from a national referral hospital serving upwards of 15 million people provides insight into patterns of injury morbidity and mortality in Northwestern Tanzania.•This study describes the characteristics, predictors and outcomes of adult acute injury patients presenting to a tertiary referral hospital in a low-income country in sub-Saharan Africa.•Although KCMC receives a large number of injury patients, risk factors for poor outcomes among all-cause injury patients who present to this hospital are not clear.•Information from this study is intended to aid the improvement of care received by injury patients in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.•Our findings demonstrate that poor injury outcomes in the Kilimanjaro region may be dependent on injury, clinical, and sociodemographic characteristics.