NYC Records 1,600 Human Bites Annually

Every year, approximately 1,600 New Yorkers bite other New Yorkers hard enough to generate an official report to the city's Department of Health. To put that in perspective, that's more people bitten by humans in one city than are bitten by sharks worldwide in a typical year.

The statistic isn't new. NYC has been tracking human bites since at least the 1970s, when epidemiologists first started paying attention to this peculiar public health metric. In 1977, the city recorded 892 human bites—a rate of 10.7 per 100,000 residents. By the mid-1980s, that number had nearly doubled, hovering around 1,500-1,600 annually, where it's remained relatively stable ever since.

Who's Doing the Biting?

The data reveals some unexpected patterns. Males are bitten more frequently than females across nearly all age groups, with two exceptions: teenagers and people in their late fifties. The upper extremities—hands, arms, and fingers—account for about 61% of all bites, which makes sense given that hands are often used defensively in altercations.

Perhaps most telling: nearly 73% of human bite incidents where the context is known occur during aggressive encounters. These aren't accidental nips or playful nibbles—they're genuine attacks, often occurring during fights, domestic disputes, or other violent confrontations.

The Indoor Epidemic

Forget dark alleys and subway platforms. About 63% of human bites happen indoors, suggesting that most incidents occur in homes, bars, or other enclosed spaces rather than on the street. This aligns with the aggressive nature of most bites—they're happening in the context of domestic violence, bar fights, and other interpersonal conflicts.

Why It Matters

Human bites aren't just bizarre statistics for cocktail party trivia. They're the third most common type of bite wound treated in emergency departments, after dog and cat bites. And they're dangerous: the human mouth harbors over 700 species of bacteria, making infection rates for human bites significantly higher than for most animal bites.

Medical professionals take human bites seriously because they can lead to severe infections, permanent damage to tendons and joints (especially in hand bites), and in rare cases, transmission of diseases like hepatitis B or HIV.

The Unreported Majority

That 1,600 figure? It's probably just the tip of the iceberg. Many human bites go unreported, either because victims don't seek medical treatment or because they occurred in contexts where neither party wants to involve authorities. The true number of New Yorkers biting each other annually is almost certainly much higher.

So the next time you're worried about shark attacks at the beach, remember: statistically speaking, you're far more likely to be bitten by a fellow human in New York City than by a shark anywhere in the world. It's a strange reminder that sometimes the most dangerous animal in the urban jungle is us.