Pidemiological features of road traffic accident deaths in Babylon province during the period 2010-2014

Abstract EN

Road Traffic Accidents are the fifth leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide.

In Iraq, traffic accidents are increasing continuously leading to more fatalities that rank Iraq as a number four in the world.

Objectives: To assess the epidemiological features of fatal RTIs in a time, place, person epidemiologic model and to identify the trend of Road Traffic Injury mortalities in Babylon province during 5 years.

Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study included a retrospective analysis of the forensic medicine data presented in the records for the period 2010-2014.The time needed to conduct this study from 1st of February to end of May,2015.

After the approval of the study protocol by the local health ethical committees , a structured questionnaire was used to collect data according to the descriptive epidemiologic model (time, place and person).

Results: During the period 2010 – 2014, mortality rates were higher in males than females with male to female ratio of 3.25:1 .

Higher mortality rates reported in the year 2012.

Most mortalities occurred during June, October, November and December.

Most mortalities due to RTIs occurred among unemployed (38.8%) and student (18.0%) that lives in urban areas.

Main roads were most common places for fatal Road Traffic Injuries( RTIs) in Babylon province and represent (72%).

Head injury was the dominant site of injury (33.1%) followed by lower limbs.

The overall proportional mortality ratio of RTIs was (30.8%).

Conclusions: During the period 2010-2014, higher proportion of mortalities reported due to RTIs and the trend of RTI fatalities peaked in 2012 and declined in the next two years.