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Background Falls and falls-related injuries are common among older adults. Injuries in older adults lead to poor outcomes and lower quality of life. The objective of our study was to identify factors associated with fall-related injuries among home care clients in New Zealand. Methods The study cohort consisted of 75,484 community-dwelling people aged 65 years or older who underwent an interRAI home care assessment between June 2012 and June 2018 in New Zealand. The injuries included for analysis were fracture of the distal radius, hip fracture, pelvic fracture, proximal humerus fracture, subarachnoid haemorrhage, traumatic subdural haematoma, and vertebral fracture. Unadjusted and adjusted competing risk regression models were used to identify factors associated with fall-related injuries. Results A total of 7414 (9.8%) people sustained a falls-related injury over the 6-year period, and most injuries sustained were hip fractures (4735 63.9%). The rate of injurious falls was 47 per 1000 person-years. The factors associated with injury were female sex, older age, living alone, Parkinson’s disease, stroke/CVA, falls, unsteady gait, tobacco use, and being underweight. Cancer, dyspnoea, high BMI, and a decrease in the amount of food or fluid usually consumed, were associated with a reduced risk of sustaining an injury. After censoring hip fractures the risks associated with other types of injury were sex, age, previous falls, dyspnoea, tobacco use, and BMI. Conclusions While it is important to reduce the risk of falls, it is especially important to reduce the risk of falls-related injuries. Knowledge of risk factors associated with these types of injuries can help to develop focused intervention programmes and development of a predictive model to identify those who would benefit from intervention programmes.

Background Hip fractures are a common injury in older people. Many studies worldwide have identified various risk factors for hip fracture. However, risk factors for hip fracture have not been studied extensively in New Zealand. The interRAI home care assessment consists of 236 health questions and some of these may be related to hip fracture risk. Methods The cohort consisted of 45,046 home care clients aged 65 years and older, in New Zealand. Assessments ranged from September 2012 to October 2015. Hip fracture diagnosis was identified by linking ICD (International Classification of Diseases) codes from hospital admissions data (September 2012 to December 2015) to the interRAI home care data. Unadjusted and adjusted competing risk regressions, using the Fine and Gray method were used to identify risk factors for hip fracture. Mortality was the competing event. Results The cohort consisted of 61% female with a mean age of 82.7 years. A total of 3010 (6.7%) of the cohort sustained a hip fracture after assessment. After adjusting for sociodemographic and potentially confounding variables falls (SHR (Subhazard Ratio) = 1.17, 95% CI (Confidence interval): 1.05–1.31), previous hip fracture (SHR = 4.16, 95% CI: 2.93–5.89), female gender (SHR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.22–1.55), underweight (SHR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.39–2.02), tobacco use (SHR = 1.56, 95% CI = 1.25–1.96), Parkinson’s disease (SHR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.14–1.84), and Wandering (SHR = 1.36, 95% CI: 1.07–1.72) were identified as risk factors for hip fracture. Shortness of breath (SHR = 0.80, 95% CI: 0.71–0.90), was identified as being protective against hip fracture risk. Males and females had different significant risk factors. Conclusions Risk factors for hip fracture similar to international work on risk factors for hip fracture, can be identified using the New Zealand version of the interRAI home care assessment. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-019-1107-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.