Clearinghouse
The CPSC National Injury Information Clearinghouse (Clearinghouse) provides incident data involving consumer products from various data sources and publishes incident reports involving consumer products that meet eligibility criteria on www.saferproducts.gov. The Clearinghouse provides updates on the status of reports and works with those reporting consumer product related incidents to meet publication eligibility. In addition, the Clearinghouse also disseminates information relating to the prevention of death and injury associated with consumer products.
Contact Information for Clearinghouse
Phone: 301-504-7921
Email: Clearinghouse@cpsc.gov
Postal mail to:
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Attn: Clearinghouse
4330 East West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814
Clearinghouse Data Sources
The Clearinghouse Online Query Tool includes data that is collected several ways. The data is collected online via the CPSC website www.saferproducts.gov. Via Telephone, reports are collected through the Toll Free Consumer Hotline at 1-800-638-2772 (8am to 5:30pm ET) . Reports can also be mailed to CPSC at the postal address listed above. CPSC also collects data from reports from other federal, state and local consumer advocacy and public health and safety entities, new reports of incidents involving consumer products and health care professionals.
The different data sources provided by the Clearinghouse Online Query Tool are as follows:
- Death certificates (DTHS)
- Death Certificates involving consumer products are provided to CPSC through state health departments. The Clearinghouse provides summaries of these, with victim identifying information removed.
- Medical Examiner and Coroner reports (MECAPS)
- Medical Examiner reports involving consumer products are provided to CPSC through state health departments. The Clearinghouse provides summaries of these, with victim identifying information removed.
- Injury/Potential Injury Incident Files (IPII).
- Reports from Consumers and SaferProducts.gov submitters, provided they have given permission to publish their report.
- Additional reports (i.e. not submitted through SaferProducts.gov) from other Federal agencies, Health Care Professionals, and Public Safety entities.
- Online News Sources/Clipping Services.
- Online News Sources/Clipping Services.
- Reports directly reported or collected from various online sources regarding incidents involving consumer products.
Restricted Sources / Data [Redacted]
The incident descriptions used are subsequently redacted to be suitable for public release. Prior to redaction, the narratives may include information that might be used to identify an individual or manufacturer.
The CPSC generally does not disclose to the public the following types of information:
- Documents prohibited from disclosure by the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) (15 U.S.C. §§ 2055 (a) and (b)), which prohibits the release of: trade secrets and confidential commercial or financial information; and information that identifies manufacturers of consumer products, unless the CPSC has taken reasonable steps to assure it is accurate, its release would be fair under the circumstances, and its release is reasonably related to effectuating the purposes of the acts the Commission administers.
- Information that identifies injured persons and the persons who treated them, without their consent.
- Certain inter-agency and intra-agency memoranda containing opinions and recommendations prepared to assist in decision-making.
- Personnel, medical and similar files, the disclosure of which would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
- Investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes when disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement procedures or would disclose techniques, guidelines and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions -- for example, records from CPSC's compliance and enforcement files pertaining to active investigations.
Ways to Access Clearinghouse Data
Clearinghouse data from the most recent ten years are available online. Clearinghouse data for the most recent calendar year of received dates generally become available in Spring of the following year.
Annual Clearinghouse Datasets
Each Clearinghouse dataset contains a complete year of data, spanning treatment dates January 1 - December 31. The datasets are the easiest way to get a comprehensive look at the product-related incidents for a given year.
Each dataset contains 37 columns including brief narratives describing the incident scenarios. These narratives can be used to extract data that are not captured by specific product codes within the Clearinghouse dataset. For example, within the Clearinghouse there are product codes for “bicycles”, but there is no code for “eating”. In order to search for people who were injured on their bicycle while eating, you would need to download a dataset and search bicycle incident narratives for instances of “eating”.
Clearinghouse Query Builder
Use the Clearinghouse Query Builder to view and download product-related incidents based on customized search criteria.
Read: Instructions for using the Clearinghouse Query Builder