An Epidemiology study of deaths from road traffic accidents

Deaths from traffic accidents are a major public health problem in all societies, especially in the low and middle-income countries. This study is done to investigate the epidemiology of fatal road traffic accidents in Fars province.
This cross-sectional study, we estimated the standardized mortality rate, mortality rate per month and day according to traffic level on suburban highways. We used data collected by the Traffic statistics available on the Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization website and Legal Medicine Organization from fatal road accidents analyzed by Stata-12 software. This study was funded by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. The Ethics Committee of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences approved the study.
: In the year 2012, total 1379 deaths occurred due to road accidents in Fars province. The age-adjusted incidence rate of fatal traffic accident was 30.02/100000 and mean of age was 36.66 ± 20.45. The mortality rate was higher in men (77/81%) and self-employed, in the age group 25-34 years, married and illiterate. Most of the decedents at during the accident and died due to head injury. The most of the fatalities were related to drivers (43/65 %), followed by the vehicle occupants (35/75 %). Considering the traffic rate on suburban roads, the highest death rate occurred in the September month, 4 o’clock AM and Abade-Shahreza and Shiraz-Marvdasht-Saadatshahr pivots occurred in the province.
Due to the high incidence and high prevalence and deaths by self-employed driver’s suburban routes, preventive measures such as precise traffic surveillance and enforcement the regulations for safe driving are considered essential.