Socioeconomic status and severity of traffic accident injuries: a cross-sectional study

Road traffic accidents are one of the serious public health problems in the world that need to be prevented. Socio-economic status is one of the important factors related to traffic accidents. The incidence and mortality rate of traffic accidents also vary between different countries and even within a country. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the severity of traffic accident injuries and socio-economic factors.

This study was a cross-sectional study involving 310 drivers caring following an accident in Imam Khomeini Hospital in Urmia, Iran in 2020. The trauma severity scale of ISS ((Injury Severity Score) and the statistical model of rank logistic regression were used for this study.

Data showed a positive and significant relationship between the severity of injury and socioeconomic factors including marital status (OR = 2.306, P = 0.024), education for high school (OR = 19.066, P = 0.013), and diploma (OR = 5.549, P = 0.011), household monthly income for 12.5 to 25 million Rials (OR = 4.87, P = 0.068), and for 25 to 37.5 million Rials (OR = 4.46, P = 0.079), occupation (OR = 2.491, P = 0.088), car monetary value for 0-550 million Rials (OR = 13.986, P = 0.001), and for 550-1100 million Rials (OR = 3.284, P = 0.016),  as well  the share of health care costs for 0-20% (OR = 22.389, P = 0.001) and  for 20%-40% (OR = 3.664 P = 0.001), while was not a significant association between the severity of injury and age (OR =0.889, P = 0.367), gender (OR = 1.391, P = 0.598), and monetary value of housing.

The data indicate that there was a relationship between most of the socio-economic factors and the severity of injury. Based on the results, intervention programs on marital status, upgrading education, increasing monthly household income, improving working and occupational status, improving monetary value and car safety, and increasing the share of health and care costs in total expenditures is recommended.