A data fusion approach of police-hospital linked data to examine injury severity of motor vehicle crashes

•Police-reported and police-hospital linked data are compared in injury severity models.•A random thresholds random parameters hierarchical ordered probit model is superior.•Head-on crashes were misestimated in the model with police-reported data.•Motorcycle and overturned crashes were only found significant in the model with police-hospital linked data.•Findings highlight the accuracy of police-hospital linked data for understanding traffic injuries.